


Always Gold

by sasiml



Series: All Gold, Everything [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (van buren boys au), Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Youth and Government, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, also known as the nostalgia au or the hipster au, anyway you ever have to write something So Niche and Specific cause thats what this is, emile durkheim said gay rights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:20:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasiml/pseuds/sasiml
Summary: the thing about coming to terms with your loneliness however, with accepting small pleasures and letting the rest just happen, is that’s exactly when things change.and that’s when he sees him.or the one where dan moves to florida and meets a boy who feels like gravity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi all -
> 
> this is a high school au, but it's not a high school au.at its very core, this is a story about nostalgia. it's a story about collective effervescence. it's a story about the power of a community and finding something so incredibly real and wonderful and beyond your wildest dreams when you had started to accept the good things were over.
> 
> the program this story follows is the Florida location, but it is based on California YMCA Youth and Government. ****
> 
> **a glossary of YNG specfic terms that are used in this work is[ _here_](https://calymca.org/images/documents/MLC/71st_MLC_Delegation_Resources/Glossary_of_YG_Terms.pdf)**  
> 
> a big thanks to all my betas and friends who've listened to me talk about this story over and over, on and on, for months now. [den](https://freckliedan.tumblr.com) especially for being my cheerleader and champion and understanding the feelings embedded into this project. also [logan](https://oppositionresearch.tumblr.com) for letting me filter my hazy narcissistic memories through his much clearer ones. thank you to [amber](https://freckliephil.tumblr.com), [katie](https://knlalla.tumblr.com), [jen](https://werebothstubborn.tumblr.com), [millie](https://legdabs.tumblr.com), [luce](https://floralmac.tumblr.com), [pika](https://palacefires.tumblr.com), maria, and anyone else who's helped with this story in any capacity.
> 
> and finally, a few dedications. this story is for the people i knew, the delegation i called home, and for everyone who has ever been changed by the power of collective effervescence and the unconditional love of an unexpected found family. 
> 
> **if you'd like to listen to the playlist that accompanies this instalment the spotify link is[ _here_](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Je9Waqn9UUk5iNXoxXPrg)**

_We were tight knit boys_  
_Brothers in more than name_  
_You would kill for me_ _  
And knew that I'd do the same_

 _And it cut me sharp_  
_Hearing you'd gone away_  
_But everything goes away_  
_Yeah everything goes away_  
_But I'm going to be here until I'm nothing  
But bones in the ground_

-Always Gold, Radical Face

 

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the moving halfway through high school that made Dan nervous. It was the apathy he felt towards completely uprooting his life again that concerned him a little bit.

The last time his family decided it would be a good idea to have a change of scenery, he was eleven and about to start middle school. Moving from one place where he didn’t have friends to another, he figured, wouldn’t affect him much. Except, to his surprise, he had made friends. For the first time in his life, there were people who had sought him out, who bonded with him, who loved him.

Except Dan had just finished his freshman year, and all of those friends, every single one, had graduated three days ago.  
  
So when his parents announced they were separating and his mother brought up moving back to Florida, Dan didn’t particularly care.  
  
“You liked living in Delray Beach,” his mom had said.

“I was also a child. I literally didn’t know anything else.” Dan had pointed out. “If you remember, I was also bullied so badly that you pulled me out of school and we moved to Boston.”

“That’s not why we moved Dan that was just an added incentive,” she countered. “And look where it got you, you got to meet Ellie and Garrett and everyone, you love your theater friends.”

Dan clutched his phone a little too tightly in his hand. He’d been waiting all day to hear from Ellie, who was on her way to New York for orientation. He knew he was being clingy–but really, he didn’t care. Ellie, it seemed, absolutely did. 

“Have you heard from either of them?” Karen asks. Dan hates his poker face. He shakes his head.

“They’re just settling in I’m sure. You and Ellie have been joined at the hip for years, and with all this new technology you can talk all the time.”

Dan doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t mention that these days he’s lucky if he gets a response from Ellie at all. It’s usually either an overly polite or passive aggressive message that leaves Dan feeling small.  

“And Dad’s just staying in Boston?”

“If you want to stay here and finish high school with him you can, it’s ok.”

Dan doesn’t say anything. He’s known his parents split was coming for a long time. A passive aggressive comment here, a jab or a remark there. Dan’s been in the thick of it for a while now. Honestly, past that he’s been too preoccupied with his own pending catastrophe to really keep up with what’s been going on at home. When it comes to his parents, Dan thinks he doesn’t have a side, he just has himself.

Still, when they sat him down in April and told him they’d be splitting up and not to worry but to also not tell his brother just yet, it hadn’t really occurred to Dan that the family unit could separate more than just a few blocks. Maybe a zip code. There was a certain allyship that’s been built up in the last few years and the thought of being seperated entirely makes him a little queasy.

“You know, suburbia could be good for you. You still need to take your driving test. Maybe we could even find you a car,” she offers, pulling Dan out of his reverie. 

Dan looks up at that. He recognises the bribe, but it also makes him appreciate how much his mom, for whatever reason, clearly wants to go back. Maybe she’s running away. She’s the free spirit Dan’s always admired and yet grappled with that same part of himself. Running away doesn’t seem all too bad to Dan right now.

Dan shoves his phone in his wrinkled pocket. “Yeah, all right. I’d be ok going back.” Karen beams.

* * *

When Dan first met Ellie, he was eleven, she was fourteen, and he had never once met someone who liked him and stayed. It was the first time someone had actually sought Dan out to be their friend and it was exhilarating. She was the first person who’d get excited over Pokemon with him, and listen to him talk about bands she didn’t care about. The first few days in middle school she followed him everywhere and laughed at all his jokes. She got excited with him at the most mundane plans they would never follow through on. Dan thought for a few days she even had a crush on him until the field trip they took at the end of the week, where she sat on a log and came out to him.

 _“I’m gay,”_ She had said.   
_  
_ Dan, being twelve, startled, and knowing next to nothing about his own sexuality past not really caring, his only response was _“Oh, ok, yeah uh, me too, kinda, I don’t know,”_ and she smiled and thus they went on.

The Ellie Dan knows now is very clearly the same person, but is not the same person to him. The beginning of the year, Ellie would find something she wanted to do or somewhere she wanted to go, and text Dan that she was picking him up in an hour. By the end of the year if Dan wanted to see her he had to plan weeks in advance. He doesn’t think she changed, he thinks she just doesn’t want to hang out with him anymore. Still, Dan posts all their pictures together. He talks about her in passing. Just because he knows they may not be classic iconic best friends anymore doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to.

Ellie comes back from NYU with almost a divine purpose, and Dan waits for her to have a small opening in her (supposedly) very busy schedule to sit on the edge of a sandbox with their toes buried under the cold grains. Her questions are polite and impersonal. It’s all so phony and adult and Dan can’t recognise it at all.

“Are you packed yet?” She asks.  
  
“It’s like you don’t even know me.”

Ellie doesn’t smile. “True.”

She says nothing about how she’s feeling or what she’s doing. It’s all too formal and Dan wonders how it’s possible to miss someone so much that you physically ache, when they’re sitting right next to you.

“I think you leaving is really gonna screw me up,” he says.  
  
Ellie doesn’t respond. Dan could physically feel her getting annoyed, but he couldn’t stop.

“It’s not like we won’t see each other,” she eventually says.  
  
“Yes, it’s exactly like that,” Dan says. “I’m moving to Florida. You’re moving to New York. You’ll come back to Boston during the holidays.”

“But then how am I leaving you? You’re leaving too.”  
  
Dan thinks, really, it has less to do with her physically leaving, and more with her pulling away. Dan knows, really, that throughout Ellie’s senior year no matter what shenanigans they got into she was slowly becoming more and more frustrated with how much he seemed to really _need_ her. The closer they got to graduation, the more intense his panic over potentially losing her grew , all the while pushing her away sooner than he even wanted.

“Why did you tell Garrett you were home and not me?” He asks.  
  
“Garrett asked,” she says.  
  
“I would’ve asked, I’m trying not to text you because I know you’re busy,” Dan says. Busy means bored of him, but he won’t say it. “I could’ve really used you these last couple weeks.”  
  
“Dan, I love you. It’s always the same problems with you though, nothing ever gets resolved and you make yourself miserable over it. Sometimes I have to step back and take care of myself.”

The words hit Dan like a ton of bricks. It’s not exactly clear why, maybe it’s his history of feeling unwanted, maybe it’s the knowledge his best friend doesn’t care anymore, but it is clear to him that he’s done being a burden. Dan withdraws. Ellie knows him best in the world, so he listens to Ellie and resolves to take care of himself.

Friends are overrated.  
  
Two weeks later, what had been the family car is packed, and Dan is becoming startlingly aware of the last five years being some sort of fever dream, immortalized in the memories of people far, far away.

The first few days back in Florida are fine, save for the fact that the air conditioning has yet to be fixed for their move. Dan spends the days playing Mario Kart with sweat dripping down into his underwear, the door closed as to trap the dog with him for company, and the air from the open window in his second floor bedroom doing little to resolve the truly debilitating florida heat.

His mom bought a three bedroom house far enough away from the beach it was affordable, and close enough to the local high school that Dan could potentially walk home the next time someone forgot to pick him up if he so desires. (He doesn’t.) It’s bigger than the one in Boston. The house is a lone, out of place two story with paneled walls on a block made up of single story ranch homes. It sticks out as an outsider in a cohesive development, the irony of which is not lost on Dan. This time instead of one family bathroom, he only shares a joint ensuite with his brother, and Dan welcomes the privacy. He wonders how if he spent nearly twelve years without a friend before moving to Boston, why suddenly the overwhelming loneliness was now unbearable.

The school he’s enrolled in is not the same one he would’ve gone to if he hadn’t moved to Boston. He’s in a different district, and he thinks maybe, that’s good. Even if someone remembers him, at least he has a better possibility of a fresh start.

The teachers are nice and the school isn’t falling apart, which for a Florida public school, Dan concedes, is fine. The buildings are spread out and stuccoed, the air conditioning functional, but Dan will admit that even the outside humidity is welcome over the fifty years of teenage grime on the linoleum floors and flickering lights. Dan finds his locker, painted a faded dark green color just like back home, and manages to get the combination on the third try. He thinks about how the only difference with this locker was that Ellie’s was not right next door. He tries not to enjoy the tiny dose of misery, but it is the only thing that grounds him to his former life, it’s the only thing that proves it’s real.

Because people are nice and good, everyone welcomes him with a smile and asks questions about his life, which Dan answers politely, the tiny infinitesimal part of him hoping someone will want to keep talking locked away in the back of his head. Of course, all the conversations go the same way.  
  
_“So you’re from Boston huh?”_  
  
_“Well I grew up here first.”_  
  
_“So you’re used to the heat already.”_  
_  
_ “Not really.”

The one person who keeps up with him is his tour guide. His name is Alex, he’s a sophomore too, and he won’t shut up about the youth and government program he’s in. He spends five minutes showing Dan the campus, and thirty insisting that Dan _has_ to come for the meeting tonight.

“Oh no, that’s ok really my mom’s coming to pick me up,” Dan says, trying to let Alex off the hook of having to keep hanging out with him, not knowing at all whether or not his mother is actually on her way. It’s not unlikely for Dan to sit in a parking lot for a few hours before someone comes to get him, but he’s pretty sure telling someone he just met about the disaster that is his family is not at all aligned with his commitment to dealing with his own problems.

“No, dude, they really want recruitment up this time of year. You’d be doing me a solid.”

Dan, who does actually have a genuine interest in some aspects of politics, and has somewhat secretly resigned himself to really any way to connect with people, agrees to go. But looking back, he does wish he had known a few things going in.

First, he wishes he’d known what the program actually is. 

“We practice running a fake government and then everyone in the state gets together, and like, does it,” Alex says. “Last year I was in the senate and I debated against marriage being legal for all people.”  
  
“Why?” Dan asks, still not understanding half of what Alex has said.  
  
“My argument was that if I, as a gay man - I’m gay by the way if you can’t tell - can’t get married then nobody should be able to.”  
  
“Yeah but it’s legal now,” Dan points out.  
  
Alex shrugs. “It was still a good argument. Seriously, you’re gonna love it,” he promises, refastening one of his campaign buttons to his oversized denim jacket as they walk. “It’s a great way to make friends here too we’re like a goddamn family everyone’s so close. I mean, partially I guess because we spend so much time together between going to conferences and weekly meetings and - ”  
  
Dan tunes out the moment he hears the term “family.” He learned a long time ago that whenever someone says a group is like a “family,” what they really mean is _some_ of us are like a family.

He has no doubt that there are groups of people who feel close enough to one another that they’d consider themselves a family. He’s seen _Friends_ , he knows it’s possible. He just isn’t about to kid himself that he could ever be a part of one.

Which is why the second thing he wishes he’d known when he sat down in a folding pew in a church down the street from the local YMCA is that in a room with about one hundred and fifty people, the first person to be called on would stand up from the seat behind him and state themselves as none other than his childhood bully.

 _Or, rather, one of them_ , Dan thinks to himself, a single bitter laugh monologuing inside his head.  He feels the blood rushing to his head, the room suddenly growing much too hot There isn’t enough air. Dan tries to make himself as small as possible in his seat, deliberately looking forward. If Allie can’t see him, then this isn’t happening, right?

“I just wanted to remind everyone that Teen Night at the gallery downtown is still happening on Thursday, which is super cool! So like, if anyone hasn’t gotten tickets yet they should talk to me or Anna,” she says, using half her arm to point over to another girl across the room.

Dan tries to take in his surroundings. Everyone, he realizes, is really pretty. Like, stunningly pretty. He knew this was a rich suburb, but somehow he’s still surprised by the $200 distressed denim jackets, the Doc Martens, the political buttons. It’s like something out of an indie movie, and he feels wildly out of place. Dan’s wardrobe iss almost exclusively skinny jeans and t-shirts. At home, that had been ok. His school was small, and everyone was awkward. He stood out just by being himself. He thinks this time standing out might make him invisible.

A pasty boy with a little like ginger hair took the podium. He commanded attention without even looking like he was caring, and Dan, for some reason unbeknownst to himself, instantly wished he was him.  
  
“Martyn Lester, South Palm Family YMCA,” the boy says. The room responds with a chant of  “ _South Palllm_ , _”_ inflecting their voices as they do.

“First, I guess, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Martyn Lester and I’m your Speaker of the House.” There were a few cheers from the front of the room. The boy, Martyn, smiles.  
  
“Eyyy, thanks guys!” he says, pointing towards his group of friends. “So if you don’t know what that is, I’m in charge of all statewide campaigns and things like that, but today I’m just running current events, so!” He scrolls down his phone. “CNN just reported that there is a city in China that’s working to reopen the Silk Road, because it would increase their trade and potentially expand their economies.”

Ten people raise their hands. For almost sixteen years, Dan has been used to being smarter than everyone else. He’s always figured if that and his _Zelda_ prowess are all he has, he’ll take it. He used to think he was pretty involved and informed when it came to the news and current events. Except, now he doesn’t understand most of what anyone was saying.

He listened carefully. He learned. He thought maybe, he didn’t need to make friends here to still enjoy the program. He doesn’t mind sitting alone.

People speak carefully and impassioned. They say something good or impressive, and the room erupts in spirit fingers. Dan does a double take. 

"It's like applauding for them without interrupting the proceedings," Alex says tells Dan. 

The meeting is adjourned by the president of what Dan finds out is called the delegation, this chapter being a part of the South Palm YMCA. “All those in favor of adjourning this session say aye in your normal speaking voice,” he says.

Everyone responds with an “aye.”

“All those opposed?” He asks, and the same people who responded aye cheer “Nay!” at the top of their lungs before the sound of the gavel hitting the podium rings out over the crowd, and everyone stands up.

Dan awkwardly looks around for Alex and spots him surrounded by a large group of people excitedly chattering and laughing.  
  
“Dan!” a voice calls.  
  
Dan turns around and Allie Masterson, sparkling in an oversized knit hoodie and ripped jeans. The girl who spent most of their childhood living next door to Dan and yet trying to get as far away from him as possible, beams.

“It is so good to see you,” she says, giving him a hug. It seems genuine. “I didn’t know you’d moved back to Florida, how long have you been here?”  
  
Dan puts on a smile. “Just this month actually, I can’t believe I ran into you. I’m not in the same district this time.”  
  
Allie nods excitedly. “Yeah actually a lot of kids from our class are in the program, some of the older kids too. Actually, our statewide candidate this year is Nick Harper but I don’t think he’s here today. He’s running for Secretary of State, that’s like, a statewide position, it’s huge. So like, the whole year will focus on that campaign.”  
  
Dan remembers a particularly unpleasant time in the fourth grade that Nick Harper told him that since nobody likes him he should leave everyone alone.

“That’s so exciting, I can’t wait to see him,” he says.

Dan signs up for the program. A part of him hopes for closure. The rest of him just needs something to do on a Tuesday night.

* * *

 

“You want $1,400 to talk about politics once a week?” Karen asks when he hands her the registration forms later that night.

It’s been quiet so far, the three of them eating dinner on the couch in front of _The Daily Show_ until Dan follows his mother into the kitchen.

“Well, I’m told their financial aid program is really good too,” he says sheepishly.

Dan knows there are families that never talk about money, it’s just that has never been his family. Somewhere between his parents teaching Dan the value of a dollar, and being stressed out of their minds trying to provide for their family, and wanting the kids to understand and appreciate what went into the lives they had, Dan, more guilty than he maybe should've been, just stopped asking for things.  

But he’s coming up on the deadline here and if he doesn’t get a check to the YMCA soon he won’t going to be able to keep going to meetings.  
  
Karen waves him off. “It doesn’t matter, it’s still $1,400 for what exactly?”  
  
“They go to conferences I know,” Dan says. “And renting the space we use can’t be cheap.”  
  
“I just don’t understand what this program actually is Dan, and you don’t give enough attention to your schoolwork as it is. What kind of time commitment is this?”  
  
“I don’t...really know,” Dan admits.

“Who’s supposed to watch your brother after school?”

Dan feels a pang of guilt again, there’s a certain kind of reliance they’ve built between each other since the move. Dan has never minded hanging out at home with Adrian, but this is different.

“There is...after care at his school. There are other working parents,” he points out, a little quiet.

“That’s even more money, Dan.”

“I know but-”

“Is that your solution to everything, just have me throw money at the problem.”

“It’s like ten dollars.”    
  
“And you want me to commit to this? Have you even made any friends?”  
  
“There are a lot of kids who go to Atlantic who are in the program,” he says. “And a lot of kids from elementary school are in it too.”  
  
She's quiet for a beat, then looks at him. “You’re friends with kids from elementary school now?”  
  
“They’ve all been nice to me so far,” Dan says. It’s interesting actually, Dan thinks. It’s almost like they have no idea what lasting effect they’ve had on him. Maybe they don’t.

“I thought maybe it could be like, some closure,” he admits.

“And you’ll keep up with your homework?”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Dan says exasperatedly.

Karen shrugs with her head, and takes the papers from him.  
  
“When do you need these by?” she asks.  
  
“Um, tomorrow.”

“ _Dan.”_  
  
“I’m sorry!”  
  
“You need to be more responsible you can’t keep doing things at the last minute.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“You never get anything done unless I’m chasing you.”  
  
“That's not true.”  
  
“Anytime I leave you to your own devices none of your homework gets turned in, you miss appointments, and then I have to run around to fix the messes you make.”  
  
Dan doesn’t wonder why he doesn’t talk to his mom more.

October goes by in a blur. He sits next to one of the boys in the club in his AP Euro class. His name is Neil and their desks are closest to their teacher, which should make the class less fun in theory but the teacher is a genuine scatterbrain with a kind heart who goes by Mr. S. He teams up with Neil on most in class projects and Dan, who hates school, genuinely enjoys the class. They sit in the corner of the room when they finish early and every day without fail he’ll ask Dan,  
  
“Seen any good movies lately?”  
  
And every day Dan, who never leaves his house and doesn’t have anyone to see a movie with, says “No.”  
  
Neil shares his music library with him, mostly comprised of 70’s and 80’s country hits Dan assumes he picked up from one of his parents. Dan likes him, really, but he can’t seem to find any motivation, or, any desperation that makes him feel truly connected.

Alex waves to him in the hallway, he introduces Dan to other members of their delegation who go to their school whenever they cross paths, and then he slips back into their group of beautiful people.

He even talks to Martyn a few times after meetings outside the church, he’s polite and asks questions about Dan and laughs at his jokes. A few weeks in however Dan suddenly stops seeing the line of senior officers waiting to talk to new people. He missed the deadline for new friends, he tries not to be bitter.

He’s _bored_. What he says, is that he misses Ellie. What he means is he’s thoroughly disinterested by his environment and peer group and terrified that he’s never going to find anyone that makes him really feel anything ever again.

* * *

 

“We have the first conference coming up in two weeks, and I know you’re all very excited,” Martyn says from the podium at the Tuesday meeting. “If you haven’t been before, this will be a great introduction to figuring out what you might want to get involved with this season.”

Dan hopes so, he still has no idea what he wants to do statewide, or even really what the options are. Mostly, he wonders if he can hide just as well in a bigger group. He stares at the pile of clothes on his bed and comes to the realization that he has nothing to wear. So far, the pile on the floor that will eventually go in a duffel bag has his sleeping bag in it, and a pair off-brand combat boots from target that are starting to fall apart.

He never minded not caring what he looked like, except now he was a part of a group of people who looked way better than him without even trying. Dan wouldn’t even know how to start to mimic the style of the rest of the delegation. He doesn’t know what it is exactly, save for the big jackets and ugly knit sweaters, that makes them look so much cooler than him. He seems to have absolutely no literacy in picking out “cool” hipster clothing, and if you asked him a year ago he wouldn’t have cared at all. He would’ve told you dressing how he’s comfortable makes him unique, and none of his friends seemed to care what he looked like. Things are different now. He looks back at the Target boots and wonders to what extent a pair of Doc’s would improve his black jeans and ironic t shirt look, but he dismisses the idea. He wasn’t going to start thinking about asking for $200 boots just to feel less inadequate. He packs whatever he can find and decides he’ll just fucking deal. He’s invisible anyway.

Suddenly, it’s 5 AM and Dan is standing in line for a run down school bus, clutching the duffel bag his mother dug out of a still unpacked box, and his headphones in his ears.

“Here, Dan. Medium right?” Miles hands him a folded black sweatshirt in covered in plastic out of a big cardboard box he carries down the line. Dan pulls off the plastic, holding the sweatshirt up. There's a yellow printed quail in a circle in the upper left hand corner for god knows what reason. Dan turns it around to read the yellow text on the back.

 _South Palm Family YMCA_ _  
_ _Delegation of Distinction_

Dan pulls the sweatshirt on. It’s soft, it fits him almost perfectly. He notices the officers have embroidery on their sleeves with their positions on it, the back of his mind wonders if he could have one of those one day. Dan looks around and sees everyone chattering, some holding Starbucks cups, most of them insisting they sit with their friends. Dan just waits to go where he’s told. He climbs on to the bus and finds an empty row to isolate in. He sits alone with his head against the window, listening to the same bastille song on repeat.

_If you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothings changed at all?_

So that’s exactly what Dan does. He lets the chill of the window remind him he’s alive as he falls slowly asleep until the bus stops and he follows the crows to basically what amounts to camp cabins.

He finds that he actually learns a lot in his sessions. There’s a judicial court program he could join, a law review, media and news correspondents, as well as simply joining the senate and writing legislation. 

The camp is huge. Delegations kill the time it takes to walk from one place to another by cheering together as they march to the center of the conference. He learns the words and chants to his own quickly, cheering along as he marches with the crowd to session, but they’re the only words he speaks.

_We go hard in the black and yellow paint  
_ _SPY - what the hell you think_

He likes the cheers. They’re catchy. Knowing them is the first step to belonging. The people around him in various shades of Doc Martens laugh and chatter in between chants, Dan just listens.

“You guys are in the South Palm delegation right?” A girl in a red delegation sweatshirt says to them. “You guys are so cool, I love how supportive you guys are of each other, you all seem hella close.”

The girls around Dan assure her, there is still plenty of drama. Dan is painfully aware of how alone he is in the crowd. He is not unaware that in a program supposedly all about speaking up, he is more quiet than he has ever been.

His delegation is currently running a senior named Sarah Banks as Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. Friends march with signs and cheer her name. People split off in groups during meals and talk to people about her platform. It’s grassroots mobilization in its purest form, and Dan is wowed by an entire community coming together to support someone they may not even know. He finds himself telling people about Sarah’s platform in his media relations session. He even carries a campaign sign with him for a few hours. He likes being a part of something bigger than himself.

He sits on the ground with Alex in the big covered tent, nicknamed the Big Top,  while leadership positions are announced and speeches are given. He saw how his own delegation was run by mainly his peers, but seeing it on this level he’s made aware of how everything is genuinely run by the students, and feels a sudden inadequacy. Dan can’t motivate himself to do much more than replay _Final Fantasy_ over and over again.

The Chief of Staff introduces the Youth Governor, and everyone stands when he enters to take the podium. He’s a tall, white, confident senior, and Dan’s a little in awe of the power he commands in only a representational government.

Dan speaks in session now that he’s even more anonymous, but keeps finding he’s starstruck by some of his peers. One girl, Maya Lopez, who’s running statewide for Speaker of the Assembly, is in a session of his, and Dan can’t take his eyes off of her.

“I’m low-key obsessed with her,” Alex had said to Dan back in the Big Top not three hours ago.

She walks into the room of forty-something faceless delegates and stands out not only because she spoke on stage just recently. She’s smart and poised, debates with ease and dominates the session, but is encouraging and engaged when others rise to speak. Even with fame, she seems genuinely kind, and Dan summons a spot of courage and goes up to her after session.

“I just wanted to introduce myself,” he says. “I’m friends with Alex. We’re both obsessed with the speech you gave.”

Maya smiles excitedly. “Oh my god, thank you! I hella love Alex, you’re in South Palm with him, right?” She asks.

The second hella, Dan notes.  
  
“Yeah we actually go to school together,” Dan tells her. “Do you need help with those signs?”  
  
They talk about the campaign as they walk to her next meeting. Maya treats him like an equal, and Dan finds that’s all he really wanted.

He learns the cheers, he wears his black and yellow delegation sweatshirt and some fabric around like a headband, and he feels a small sense of pride for the group. Dan separates people into those who talk to him and those who don’t, and yet the feeling is overwhelming, even when he’s completely questioning his place in all of this. His body is almost lifted. He’s focused in a way he’s never been before. For the first time in longer than Dan can even remember, he’s living for the moment.

Dan accidentally interviews to be a Legislative Analyst Chair. It’s a new program area and he knows literally nothing about what he’s supposed to be doing, and he knows he got the position because nobody else wanted it. Still, the lead advisor for his delegation, a burly dad like figure called Leslie smiles at him in the mess and greets him with a "hey statewide officer." A small part of Dan is proud just to have the title. 

He meets the other committee chairs in a team building exercise, and they accept him immediately. Forming a group, Dan finds, is a lot easier than coming into one ready made. He’s loud with these people, he laughs, and when he lines up for the bus back home at the end of the weekend he thinks, if he has statewide friends, he doesn’t really need friends in his delegation. He considers, all in all, the convention a success, regardless if he might still be alone in meetings back home, he would at least have fun statewide.

The thing about coming to terms with your loneliness however, with accepting small pleasures and letting the rest just happen, is that’s exactly when things change.

And that’s when he sees him.  
  
There’s a black haired boy standing off to the side, there’s a green plaid button up poking out from under his black delegation sweatshirt with the words _Media Correspondent_ written in gold on the sleeve, a camera bag at his side, and his voiced raised at the other boy waiting with him. Dan listens. Healthcare. They’re arguing about national healthcare.

“Yeah but why should I have to pay for them?” the other boy says.

Dan spins around almost instinctively, and joins in without an invitation. “You know, this Us and Them narrative is getting really old.”

The black haired boy turns to Dan and smiles. Dan realizes that he’s seen him before, he’s even had a couple meals with him this weekend. He has the strangest sensation of something clicking into place, and yet he’s still as far away as possible.

“National healthcare is an internationally recognized right,” the boy says. “Plus, there was a study last year that said a single payer system actually lowered the cost of healthcare nationwide, so.”

“Yeah but doctors pay a lot of money to go to medical school and they’re gonna get cheated.” the other boy starts.  
  
“No they won’t,” the black haired boy responded, incredulous. “That's just factually inaccurate. Doctors don’t make their money from a co-pay.”

“Plus, like, who cares if rich people make less money?” Dan says. “I’m really concerned about the one percent guys.”

The boy laughs while the other drifts away.  
  
“Oh my god that made me so angry,” he says. “His arguments weren’t even the good ones.”  
  
“I’m sorry, I totally can’t remember your name,” Dan says.  
  
“Phil Lester,” he says, still smiling.

“You’re a junior?” Dan asks.  
  
Phil nods. “I go to St. Andrews. How about you?”  
  
“I go to Atlantic. I’m a sophomore.”

People start moving to the bus, and Dan feels a little like he can’t breathe. He’s aware of every move Phil makes next to him, because while it’s pathetic, Dan really just wants someone to sit next to on the way home. He walks with Phil past the seats and is overwhelmingly thankful when he slides in next to him on the bench.

He’s been everyone’s last choice for so long he doesn’t understand how this person, who has friends, liked his interaction with him enough to sit with him on a six hour bus ride.

Dan looks out the window and Phil shoves his camera bag by his feet. Dan notices how his long legs are angled awkwardly, and he smiles, he can relate.

Dan knows it’s stupid, he doesn’t believe in fate, but the first time he met Ellie, he knew she’d be someone important. The world feels like it’s shaking and suddenly there’s a boy right in front of him that he doesn’t ever want to leave.

“Does anyone want some Pixie Sticks?” Dan turns around to see a freshman holding a big box of those giant novelty pixie sticks they have at fairs.  
  
“Why on earth do you have those?” He asks.  
  
The boy shrugges. “They won my election for Chief Clerk,” he says.

“I will absolutely take like, twelve,” Phil says. He offers one out to Dan, who shakes his head.  
  
“Not hungry.”  
  
Phil gets up to rummage through the craft box at the back of the bus, pulling out a pair of scissors to cut the plastic, and downing half the Pixie Stick entirely as he sits back down next to Dan with enough ease you’d think they've been best friends for ages.

“I have that one cheer stuck in my head, the ‘hola, que pasa’ one?”  
  
Phil groans. “That delegation literally only has one cheer and I hate it. They also have way too many delegates, I’m not even sure it’s allowed.”

“It’s so catchy though, like I don’t even know how I’m gonna get it out of my head.”  
  
Phil shakes his head. “I have 183 problems and they’re every single one.”

Dan doesn’t know if it’s the sugar rush, the cold dark atmosphere, or simply his repressed need for human connection, but talking to Phil is easy.  
  
They talk about politics because it’s right in front of them, Dan’s not surprised to find they agree on most counts. By the time they make it to the first rest stop, the conversations turned to video games. Dan finds out Phil’s really into an online world building game with some of his friends from school right now.

“It’s not a cool gamer thing I guess but we have fun,” Phil says.  
  
“I get that,” Dan responds, pulling out his phone. “I was playing Mario Kart all summer but now honestly I’m stupidly hooked on this street fair app right now.” He tapps on the icons that have timed out for him to collect his rewards. “Sorry it’s just if I don’t do this now I will actually die.” He clicks the home button.  
  
Phil laughs. “Is that your girlfriend in the picture?” He asks, nodding towards Dan’s phone.

Dan knows the picture like the back of his hand, but he slides the apps with his thumb to get a better look at it anyway. It’s him and Ellie at her senior prom, the theme was _One Night in Paris_ , which Dan rejected fervently but looked great in the photos anyway.

For almost as long as they’ve been friends, people assumed he and Ellie were a couple. Dan always acted baffled, or annoyed, though secretly a part of him loved it a little bit. It wasn’t that he wanted to be with her or anything of the sort, but to him at least, it meant he was fooling people enough that they were as close as they used to be.

“No, that’s my best friend actually. She just started at NYU. And she’s a lesbian.”

“I have an aunt who lives in New York,” Phil says. “My family goes to visit her every summer, I love the city.”  
  
“I’ve never been,” Dan says, “but Ellie seems to love it.”

“I bet you miss her,” Phil says.  
  
Dan looks down at his phone, and locks it. “So much. We did everything together, it was kinda iconic. Our lockers were next to each other and everything. She’s kinda ditched me a little now.”  
  
Phil nods. “I have like three friends right now and we all just sit on skype because none of us can drive, I get it. Mostly I hang out with my brothers friends, or Pj.”

“I don’t know Pj,” Dan says.  
  
“You guys would get along I’ll introduce you.”  
  
“Does your brother do Y and G?” Dan asks.  
  
Phil looks at him. “My brother is Martyn Lester.”  
  
Dan could punch himself in the face. He knew that, why didn’t he cognitively make the connection.  
  
“Right, I knew that sorry,” he says. The little bit of irrational bitterness he has about the officers simply not paying attention to him rises up and he shoves it back down.

“Anyways, half the delegation officers end up at my house on the weekends. They’re all pretty close.”  
  
“It seems like it,” Dan says.  
  
Phil suddenly shudders. “Ok, I think those Pixie Sticks are getting to me now.”

Dan’s laugh comes from his chest.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Phil said in defence, bouncing in his seat.

The bus pulls into the Y around 6 AM, and Dan and Phil exchange phone numbers.

“See you Tuesday,” Phil waves as he gets in a green toyota with four other gorgeous laughing faces. Dan tries to ignore the jealousy rising, and smiles as they drive away.

He waits another 20 minutes for his mom.

“So how was it?” Karen asks.

“Good,” Dan replies. He scrolls through his phone in silence.

Dan collapses on his bed almost immediately when he gets home, prepared to sleep for the rest of the day. His phone buzzes under his pillow. The stupid, incessant hope that it might be Ellie makes him take a look. It’s Phil.

_I miss it already._

And then

_Everyone’s here, it’s not over for them, but I miss it._

Dan keeps his eyes open long enough to reply,  
  
_Me too._ _  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_You're my picture on the wall_  
_You're my vision in the hall_  
_You're the one I'm talking to  
_ _When I get in from my work_

 _You are my girl, and you don't even know it_  
_I am livin' out the life of a poet_  
_I am the jester in the ancient court  
_ _You're the funny little frog in my throat_

\- Funny Little Frog, Belle & Sebastian

* * *

 

School feels different when Dan goes back on Tuesday. Everything feels lighter somehow, now there’s something to rely on outside of the confines of school. Phil sends him snapchats throughout the day. Two pictures of periodic elements with puns attached, (Dan shakes his head). A picture of something he thought was dumb in his english reading, (“what patriarchal bullshit is this?” he captions it), three incognito selfies in what Dan finds out is his English class.

Even in what looks like a formal dress code, they’re still incredibly cool.

Alex and his friends seem to notice Dan in the halls more, they wave him over and offer him a ride to the meeting after school, and Dan accepts it a little too quickly.

“My mom has a big SUV I take on Tuesdays,” a boy with sandy hair—Miles, Dan remembers—tells him. “So like, let me know I’m happy to take you.”

“Yeah that would be a huge relief actually, my parents work.”

“Dude we got you,” Olive tells him.

“Semi-related, but we need to reinstate Y and G club at school,.” Alex says.

“We never got anything done in Y and G club.” Miles says.

“It would be cool to have a place for all the Atlantic kids who are in the delegation to talk though,” Olive says. “I still don’t really know anyone.”

“Is this your first year?” Dan asks.

Olive nods her head. “Yeah, and I’m trying to run for director of the Board of Education so we’ll see how this goes.”

“Wow,” Dan says, impressed. He’s curious to know how she fit in so quickly. He supposes they were all just friends before she even joined.

Dans phone buzzes once and he knows it’s Phil before he even looks at it.

It’s a snapchat of Martyn in what looks like (a very well funded, Dan thinks) classroom making an ironic peace sign at the camera with the same redhead Dan’s seen with them before, her leg up on one of the desks and her jacket pushed behind her.

 _spy taking over_ it’s captioned, with three emojis.

He turns the phone to the group before the image goes away. “Phil just sent me this.” “What the fuck, Phil never sends me anything,” Alex says.

“I’m so gay for Cornelia,” Olive says. “Are they dating? Her and Martyn?”

Dan of course, knows in the back of his mind that he’s only showed them the picture to prove that he has friends in the delegation, that he’s cool and connected, even if he’s not. It’s very similar to what he did the last few months of Ellie’s senior year. What he comes to realize that it actually works. He didn’t know Cornelia’s name until just now, but now because he knows Phil he’s a source for high level officer gossip.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.

“He was dating a girl who graduated last year but I don’t think they talk anymore,” Miles said. “I don’t know I’m a senior and an officer but nobody tells me anything.”

“Wait, are you and Phil dating? Because that would be hella cute.” Alex says.

“No, no. We’re just friends.” Dan says.

He holds up his camera to reply to Phil. Alex also does an ironic peace sign, covering most of his face. Something in the back of Dan’s brain notes that this must be what the cool kids do. He sends it to Phil,

_Alex wants to know why you aren’t sending him these_

Phil responds almost immediately with a picture of his bag on the floor by his feet. Dan figures he’s in class.

_Tell Alex it’s because I hate him_

“Phil says he hates you,” Dan says.

“Send him a picture of me flipping him off.”

Winter break comes sooner than expected. Dan and Adrian wave goodbye to their mother and board a flight to spend Christmas in Boston with their father. Christmas has always been a lowkey experience in Dan’s house, and he plans to spend his break relaxing in his old bedroom and ignoring any pressing responsibilities. He sleeps until midday and browses Tumblr until the early morning. _WHATS YOUR TUMBLR,_ Phil asks over text when Dan mentions this. Later, he gets five anonymous asks from Phil calling him things ranging from a “doorknob” a “massive fucking dork,” and one that simply just says _nerd_

Dan tries not to check social media, he’s doing his best to let Ellie come to him, but he sees she’s home too and can’t help it.

_i’m in boston, are you free this week?_

It’s three hours before she responds.

_Yes! I have a few hours Tuesday afternoon?_

He wonders what happened to the times where they would spend days on end together.

Dan meets Ellie at the diner they used to frequent what seems like ages ago. She’s sitting at their table by the far window, and smiles when she sees him, standing up to give him a hug.

Dan could cry.

“God, it’s so good to see you, I missed you,” Ellie says, not letting go of Dan. Dan doesn’t let go either. She feels familiar, like an entire world he left behind.

It occurs to Dan that when Ellie says she missed him, she sounds genuine. He doesn’t understand how both the fact that she missed him and the fact she doesn’t want to be close with him can be true, but it is and he’ll take what he can get.

He sits in the dark wooden chair across the table from Ellie, the tension feels natural. He orders a burger and she orders french toast and they sit and talk about friends they keep tabs on but neither of them really know. It’s lonely, but the echo of the love he knew feels not so far out of reach.

“So how’s Y and G going?” Ellie asks.

“Really good,” Dan responds, scraping a fry against the ketchup on his plate. “I thought of asking one friend to homecoming, you know as a friend, but I didn’t end up going.”

“What friend?”

“Phil.”

“Do you like him?” she asks this tactfully. Everything's formal again, but Dan can’t help but be honest with her anyway.

“Kind of, I don’t know,” he says. “I like him, but I don’t know how he feels and it’s hella not worth risking?”

Ellie raises her eyebrows. “Hella?” she asks.

Dan shrugs. “Some kids from another delegation got me saying it.”

“Does Phil say it?”

“He’s picked up on it too.”

Ellie pauses, her mouth opening for a moment like she was going to say something, and closes it.

“What?” Dan asks.

“It’s just,” she pauses again, “and you _don’t_ think he likes you?”

“It’s...complicated.”

Ellie hums. “How so?”

“Like, last week we had an argument about who loves the other more, but it wasn’t romantic,” Dan says. “Phil posted a facebook status like, ‘when you have an argument with your best friend about who loves the other more and you’re like oh this is why everyone thinks we’re dating.’” Dan smiles at the memory.

Ellie just stares at him. “You’re both so scared of rejection it’s actually insane.”

She’s right, of course.

* * *

Two days before Christmas his father wakes Dan up unexpectedly.

“You wanna go look for a car?” he asks.

“What?” Dan asks, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the light.

“You’re halfway through drivers ed, right? You’re gonna need to take your test in something you’re used to driving.”

Dan’s sleep addled brain tries to make out the words. “You wanna buy me a car?”

“Merry Christmas,” his father smiles.

They wander a crowded, snow covered lot in the dull afternoon sun. His father asks questions about mileage and safety ratings and more obscure things Dan tries to understand until he’s sitting in a black volvo sedan from sometime in the early 2000’s and his father is beaming at him with an unexpected pride. Dan catches a glimpse of his future while also an echo of the past.

 _did you get anything good for christmas?_ Phil texts him later.

 _my dad bought me a car,_ he responds.

_what the fuck my parents just got me pajamas_

_clearly they aren’t compensating for anything._

* * *

 

The day before New Years Eve, Dan hugs his Dad goodbye and gets a text from Neil asking if he wants to go to a party the theater kids are throwing with him tomorrow.

 _It’s supposed to be a joint wrap party for Pippin but this way it’s an excuse to get drunk._ Right. Dan was supposed to go see Pippin a few weeks ago but ended up going to the South Palm christmas party - slash - toy drive instead.

Neil’s mom drives them to a suburb in Boca Raton that Dan figures his mom would need to start working on the black market to afford. She’s quite possibly one of the sweetest people Dan has ever met, and reminds him to just call if they want to leave.

“Thanks for coming with me, man,” Neil says, walking up to the front door and knocking a few times. “Yeah, no, sure,” Dan says.

The theater kids have never liked him, and it’s even more evident when surrounded by them. Neil joins the group sitting and chatting by the fire, but after about five minute of Dan standing awkwardly folded in on himself and possibly shaking he grabs a handle of vodka and retreats to a plush entertainment center, resigning himself to watching whatever inane thing was on tv while a girl he recognises as Nicole giggles with her boyfriend under a blanket. Dan winces. His phone buzzes. _My mom and Martyn are drunk and singing Guys and Dolls to each other, honestly it’s so funny to watch._ Dan feels a pang of sadness whenever he hears about Phil’s family, close as they are. They seem to be everything Dan wanted out of a family and never seemed to be able to grasp. _I’m sitting alone at a party with a bottle of vodka and I think people are doing hand stuff in the corner of the couch._

_Yikes_

_At least I have alcohol right_

He takes tiny sips from the bottle, trying to stave off the burn of the alcohol while also embracing the romanticism of drinking to forget. The extent of his drinking experiences have been wine at formal dinners and playing the High School Musical drinking game with Ellie. He’s fifteen what do you want from him?

_Any plans for midnight? :(_

Dan stares at his phone.

The thing about Phil, is Dan can never tell if he’s flirting or not. He _thinks_ they’re just friends, but then he says things like this and he never knows. He’s ready to go full stop and be best friends with Phil until they die. He’s not looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever, mostly, Dan thinks, he’s looking for someone to talk to who won’t fucking leave. Dan actually takes a big sip this time.

_Probably not. What about you? Cornelia's here like always so I’m just embracing my own loneliness_

And then another text

_I wish you were here_

_Me too,_ Dan repliess almost instantly. He watches the time on his phone turn from 11:59 to 12:00

_Happy New Year, Phil. I’m so glad I met you._

_Happy New Year, Dan. You’re honestly my best friend I love you a lot._

* * *

 

Dan finds himself being shaken awake on the same couch around 3 in the morning.

“Hey I wanna leave do you wanna come with me? My moms on her way,” Neil says.

Dan blinks. “Yeah I wanna leave. Why do you wanna leave? What happened?”

Neil shakes his head. “They were gossiping out there, and I don’t like it.”

That wasn’t what Dan expected for sure, and he was struck by how pure and genuine it was. With all these rich kids and booze, he thought for sure something got broken at _least._

He gets up and follows Neil to his mom’s car, and falls asleep on the ride back to his apartment. When he wakes up again, he’s on the pull out bed in their living room, with a glass of water on the coffee table next to him. He can’t help but be overwhelmed at this expression of love, he wonders if he’s been making more friends than he realized.

* * *

 

_ugh last night I fell asleep on Nicole’s couch and woke up on Neil’s sofa bed_

He says it mostly to establish that he’s the kind of person who goes to parties and has friends, but the facade drops fairly quick a few moments later when he gets Phil’s response.

_Were you drunk?_

_No,_ Dan admits

_It was just a shitty party._

_You should’ve come over here instead around 1 Allie came over I’m sure my parents would’ve been fine_

Dan read the text twice. _Allie Masterson? Yeah_

Dan replies without even thinking about it.

_She kinda tortured me from ages 3 to 11. Along with Nick and half the delegation tbh._

Dan froze the second he sent the text, he wasn’t supposed to be telling people his problems anymore. He especially wasn’t supposed to be turning people who were apparently already friends against them, especially when the result would never turn out good for Dan.

_I’m really sorry you went through that Dan._

Another text.

_I was pretty badly bullied too, but I don’t have to see them every week. I did for a while and I would get so anxious like I don’t read people well, so I didn’t know what was coming??_

And one more.

_Allie’s manipulative as hell but we went to pre-school together and our families know each other through work and stuff so we grew up together. If you want to talk about it i’m here._

Dan had to physically stop himself from spilling his entire life story and all his childhood tragedies, instead texting Phil a simple _Thanks <3_

_< 3_

* * *

 

The Saturday after break ends Miles hosts a Miyazaki movie night in his backyard to help fund the financial aid program. “$5 a piece,” he says, taking bills at the front door and waving people in. “Hey Dan!”

Dan awkwardly walks up the front steps and pulls a crumpled $5 bill out of his pocket. “Hey, how you doing?”

“Not bad, not bad at all. Phil’s already here by the way. He and Pj are outside.” Dan wonders how he can be so transparent. “Oh, cool. I guess I’ll see you outside then.” Miles claps him on the back as Dan wanders through the house. While maybe a little nicer, it doesn’t seem all too different from his own. It’s only one neighborhood over, the carpets look the same and there are a few school photos on the walls, but nothing recent. Dan manages to find Phil by the snack table where there’s an at home popcorn machine and a donation jar stuffed with a few singles and a handful of quarters Dan assumes were weighing down someone's pockets.

“Hey guys,” Dan says.

“This isn’t my third bag of popcorn ok you can’t prove that,” Phil says immediately.

Dan laughs. “Yeah, ok sure.”

They sit on a blanket close to the front of the crowd, Pj and Alex behind them and a white sheet draped against the house for the projector.

Dan sits so close to Phil their sides touch when they line up, the black on black of their delegation sweatshirts fading into one another. Dan thinks it’s intentionally romantic, but he doesn’t know. Phil doesn’t strike him as someone with boundaries.

Neither of them say anything about it, but Phil looks over at Dan and smiles throughout the movie. Dan doesn’t move away. He’s acutely aware of the warmth of Phil’s body against his own, and even more so that neither of them move away for the entirety of the film. It’s all so confusing and frustrating because he _knows_ where this is going.

He’s just not sure what comes next.

* * *

 

The first delegation meeting of the new semester, Dan can practically feel the anticipation in the air beneath the January wind when he gets out of Miles’ mom’s SUV. He sees a few people wave to their group, he assumes at Alex, but still bounces excitedly in his knees as he makes his way to the door, and notices that everyone else seems to be doing the same.

Dan scans the crowd for Phil while waiting for the sign in sheet. Allie smiles at him and waves, a couple other people nod at him in passing.

“Who are you looking for?” A voice from behind him says. Dan jumps.

“Fuck! Phil, you startled me.” Dan reaches for the pen attached to the clipboard and signs both of them in before dropping it uncaringly and turning to follow Phil migrating inside with the crowd.

“How was your APUSH quiz?” Dan asks.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Phil says, pushing past a few people before claiming the last two seats in the fourth row. “Pretty good, I think, but who knows? Hi Pj.”

Pj holds his hand up to wave at Phil once. “What happened last night? You suddenly went dark on the server,” he asks Phil as he sits down next to him. Dan claims the seat on Phil’s other side.

“I fell asleep at my desk again,” Phil admits.

“You need to stop doing that.” Dan says.

“Talk to me when you’re a junior.” Phil combats. “I pretty much don’t do anything other than homework these days. My teachers are contributing to a fascist regime and I’m simply a bystander.”

“Ok calm down boy,” Pj says.

The sound of a gavel hitting the podium makes them all go quiet until it’s time for group debates and Phil starts to get up from his seat.

“Are you leading the debate?” Dan asks, surprised.

Phil nods quickly and pushes past Dan to leave the row of seats.

“Ten bucks says he trips,” Pj whispers to Dan.

Dan shakes his head. “No way it’s only four rows. He can make it, he’s not a baby.”

That’s when there’s a thump and a “shit!” and Dan looks up to see Phil catching his hand on the stairs up to the podium.

“Ok, I forgot about the stairs.” Pj just chuckles.

“Hi if you don’t know me I’m Phil Lester, South Palm YMCA.” As per tradition, the group chants back the delegation name.

“Today I wanted to talk about the California law where they allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver's licenses. So, if you don’t know basically under California AB-60 you can obtain a special drivers licence that allows you to operate a vehicle, but it doesn’t count as a government ID as long as you can prove your identity and California residency. Do we have a speaker for this topic?”

A few hands are raised. Phil points in the direction of the middle of the room and Olive stands up.

“How do you rise?” Phil asks. “I rise to speak pro on this topic.” “Please rise state your name and delegation, you have two minutes.”

Dan finds he’s grown to really like parliamentary procedure. After four months he almost knows it by heart. He’s getting more comfortable every day, though he thinks it may have something to do with no longer sitting alone in the back of the room.

Dan wouldn’t say he’s integrated into the delegation. Sure, he’s not sitting alone anymore, but he is very much still an outsider. He still sticks out like a sore thumb, awkward and gangly and dressed in pretty much the same thing every day. The officers still don’t talk to him past a quick smile. He can joke around with Alex or Olive on the way to meetings or in the halls, but the only person he’s actually close to is Phil.

And Dan has absolutely no idea where things are going with Phil.

On one hand, they immediately became best friends who literally don’t ever stop talking, and they laugh it off when someone asks if they’re dating. On the other hand, they are way too verbal about their attachment for it to mean anything else.

“What does it mean if a boy texts ‘I love you’ in morse code?” Dan asks his brother while he brushes his teeth in their joint bathroom with the door open.

Adrian just stares at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Dan types back about 17 heart emojis and a smile.

“So is Phil a romantic interest?” his mother had asked one day when Dan stopped halfway down the hallway to the kitchen, stopped, and laughed once out loud.

“What?” Dan says, looking up. “No, we’re just friends.” He tries not to smile and locks his eyes on his phone, responding to the meme Phil had sent him with one that was rather tasteful and surreal if he did say so himself.

Karen doesn’t say anything and Dan knows she doesn’t believe him. Dan’s never exactly had a conversation with her about his sexuality. He’s basically been talking about male celebrities or cute boys on the street since early childhood, he’s never been pushed by his mother to label or examine his sexuality and it seemed to have worked well enough. He’s always been allowed to be exactly who he wants to be, he’s just not sure who that is.

Still, she gives him a knowing look and Dan feels like he’s been put through a paper slicer.

Regardless if he’s in a phase where he’s talking to his mom or avoiding her, if they’re going to underground concerts in the heart of the city together or missing each other completely, she can always see right through him.

Phil manages to worm his way into every facet of Dan’s life even only seeing him once a week without Dan realising it. There isn’t a class that they aren’t texting. There isn’t a night they don’t spend doing homework or playing video games on skype. Having Phil there even artificially, is reassuring. He practically lives at his desk in what looks, at least on camera, like an office alcove, and the enormous mountain of work he always seems to be doing makes Dan incredibly glad he doesn’t go to prep school.

Phil clacks silently on the keyboard of his Macbook, glasses periodically falling down his nose and Martyn occasionally joining him in the background at his desk opposite Phil’s. The sounds coming from their house are warm and inviting, yet they make Dan exceedingly aware of his own loneliness.

“Sorry about the noise, Cornelia’s making dinner with my Mom and it can get kinda loud in the kitchen.” “She’s always over there then?” Dan asks, furrowing his brow. It wasn’t like his parents were conservative, but he couldn’t ever imagine them letting a significant other have a semi-permanent presence like that.

Phil shrugs. “It was like this with his last girlfriend too. She drives him around everywhere so it’s not like my parents can be mad. Like, once you get your licence they’re gonna love you.” Dan pretends not to notice the comparison.

“That’s so far away though, can’t you just get your licence instead.”

“You have your permit, it’ll be quicker. Also, tell me Dan, do you think it’s a good idea for me to drive?”

A beat. “Maybe not.”

Phil laughs.

Dan looks at the time in the corner of his laptop. “It’s 11:30, aren’t you gonna go to bed soon?”

Phil shakes his head. “APUSH is literally kicking my ass, and I keep getting distracted.”

“Sorry,” Dan says. He’s not really sorry, but he’ll say it anyway.

Phil’s smile, even grainy on the webcam, is so bright that it makes Dan immensely happy that he could make it happen.

Dan yawns. He turns his computer on his side and tucks himself under his duvet.

“You should go to bed, you have school tomorrow.” Phil says.

“So do you.” “Yeah but I’m doing homework, what have you been doing all night?”

“I’ve been reading about how the Titanic was switched with it’s sister the Olympic and intentionally sunk for insurance money.”

“I’ll ask you about that when I’m not reading about westward expansion,” Phil says, rubbing his eyes.

“Go to sleep, Phil.”

“No really I’m fi-” the rest of Phil’s sentence is stifled by a yawn. Dan just raises his eyebrows.

“Ok, maybe I should go to bed. I’ll text you during break tomorrow?” Dan nods, watches Phil wave goodbye as he closes his laptop and sighs into his pillow. Everything feels warm.

His phone buzzes.

_Goodnight, I love you._

Dan doesn’t even know anymore.  
  
_Goodnight, I love you too._

* * *

 

The second Training and Elections conference comes during Martin Luther King weekend, and Dan is actually excited. While both Dan and Phil were statewide officers and thus had already picked their program areas, it becomes clear almost immediately that Phil not only has a much better idea of what he’s supposed to be doing, he also takes it way more seriously than Dan does.

“It’s not that I don’t take it seriously,” Dan says, halfheartedly folding a second pair of black skinny jeans and throwing them into his duffel. “It’s just i’m not 100% sure what my job is.”

“Yeah that’s because you accidentally signed up for it,” Phil says. “If you were in the senate you could hang out with me and Alex all day.”

Dan groans loudly and tosses his head back.

“Suck it up you’re a committee chair!! Your first year! You’re gonna have a whole group of people looking up to you and you get to tell them what to do it’s gonna be great.”

Dan just groans again. Phil smiles.

There’s a knock on Dan’s door before his mom comes into the room.

“Whats up?” Dan asks. Phil waves from the grainy screen.

“Hi Phil. Dan, do you think you could get a ride tomorrow morning? I have a conference call in the morning I’d rather be rested for.”

“You said you could take me.”

“If you can’t get another ride of _course_ I’ll take you but couldn’t you reach out to the kids you carpool with?”

“He can come over here,” Phil interjects. “My brother has a bunch of friends over, we’re all going to the Y in the morning Dan can just come hang out with us tonight.”

Dan’s heart skipps a beat.

“Is that alright, Dan?” Karen asks.

“Yeah, yeah fine I’ll be ready to go in like ten?”

His mother exits and Dan turns to Phil. “If you were having a party why wasn’t I already invited?”

“Calm down, it’s not really my party, it’s Martyn inviting his friends over last minute and emptying the wine cellar. We can hang out with them until we get bored.”

Dan shoves the last of his predominantly black pile of clothes in the duffel bag.

“I’ll head over now, text me your address?”

“Yeah, we’re just on Old Ocean it’s not too far.”

“Phil.”

“Yeah?”

“Ocean Boulevard as in your house faces the beach?”

“Well actually it’s more backed up along the beach.”

“Phil.”

“Yeah?”

“Just how much money does your family have?”

“It’s not one of the big ones with the tennis courts and whatnot. Anyway my parents bought it a long time ago.”

“Yeah, ok.” Dan shakes his head. “I’ll see you in like 15 minutes. Do me a favor and like, tell people I’m coming so they don’t want me to leave immediately.”

“You’re always welcome, Dan.”

Dan suppouses Phil wasn’t entirely incorrect. It’s dark, but Dan can tell Phil’s patch of the long stretch by the coastal highway seems to be comprised of slightly more modest townhouses nestled against some dunes, rather than the mcmansions that accompany the exclusive (racist, homophobic, anti-semitic) beach clubs, or the condo developments not too far from there.

Karen pulls into the small driveway, “Should I come in and introduce myself or-”

“No, God, mom please don’t do that.”

“I feel like it’s polite.”

“Mom, I’m begging you. Just let me go in there on my own.”

She shakes her head. “All right. Text me when you get on the bus tomorrow please.”

“Yeah, will do.” Dan grabs his bag and slams the car door shut, and just makes it to the front steps when Phil opens the door with a flourish and gives him a hug.

“How did you do that?” Dan asks.

“Huh?”

“How did you know exactly when I was getting here?”

“Your text, I had to walk back to the house to let you in, everyone’s outside and my parents are gonna be out for another few hours.”

Phil offers out a hand to take Dan’s bag. “Everyone’s just tossed them in the living room, come on.”

Dan ignores Phil’s outstretched hand and shoulders his bag, following Phil upstairs to the main floor and to the back of the house. Phil’s house felt almost exactly how Dan had imagined it over their Skype calls. The walls were white, but the warm rich tones from the hardwood made it pop. They pass the kitchen and Dan is unsurprised to see stainless steel appliances, but his heart pangs a little at the dishes in the drainboard, indicating someone did actually eat something they cooked themselves. His eyes, however, are drawn to the view. Sunset over the beach is one thing. Sunset over the beach in a living room right out of _Architectural Digest_ is another. Dan shakes his head and lets his bag fall to the floor before following Phil back to the back door in the kitchen.

Of course there’s beach access, Dan thought. Why wouldn’t there be? The feeling of exposure slowly starts to creep up along Dan’s neck. Four months with these people, and he still can’t seem to blend in.

“This is the backyard,” Phil says, opening an arm to showcase a perfectly kept green lawn nestled against a hill and surrounding a large clear pool. “The beach is just down this way though.” He pushes open a gate and turns to make sure Dan is with him, who just smiles as they creep down the plywood stairs to the shore.

“This is stupid pretty, Phil,” Dan finally says, a rush of relief washing over him as he does. Honestly, even in a small capacity, Dan notes, feels good sometimes.

“Yeah.” Phil says. “I know.”

There’s a holler and a cheer when Dan and Phil get closer to the group, sitting in beach chairs in a circle near the bottom of the steps, a low fire going in a concrete pit and a bluetooth speaker playing songs Dan had never heard before.

“Phil! Dan!” Martyn waves them over. “Please tell me you guys brought blankets.”

“No? You didn’t ask us for blankets.” Phil says, offering a folding camp chair to Dan while unpacking his own.

“We apparently forgot it’s January and even Florida has wind.” Cornelia says. “Though this wine tasting has been very informative.”

“You’re doing a wine tasting?” Dan asks.

“Kinda. Momma and Dadda Lester wouldn’t let us take the actual glasses to the beach.” Sarah says, pouring a bottle of what looked like a red wine into a Dixie cup and offering it out to Phil, who somehow manages to scoot his chair closer to Dan’s while reaching for it. Dan pretends not to notice because really, what was the other option?

Phil makes a sip and then makes a face. “Ugh, I don’t like red.” He pushes the cup on Dan to make it go away. Dan laughs, taking the cup and drinking the rest.

“You dingbat.”

Phil just shakes his head at Dan, still making a face.

“Did you know whether or not you like red wine depends on your ability to taste tannins? And the gene for that is passed genetically?” Cornelia said, leaning her chair back a few times before pouring a Dixie cup full of what Dan assumed was another red and gave it to Phil.

“Dan did you want some too?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah thank you.”

“What even are tannins though?” Sarah asks.

“Yeah, that’s where I stopped reading,” Cornelia admits.

The circle laughs. Dan tightens the grip on his cup and takes a sip. He leans in closer to Phil and finishes the wine in his cup. Phil smiles and takes the empty cup from Dan to give it back to Cornelia along with his own, who fills them both with a white this time.

“Just how many bottles did you guys take?” Phil asks.

“They were all gifts nobody was ever gonna open,” Martyn rationalizes.

Phil shakes his head and takes a sip of the next wine. “I like that one better.”

“That also might be because it’s hella expensive,” Sarah says.

“We always knew you were bougie,” Dan teases.

Phil knocks his shoulder against Dan’s, and he can actually feel the air leaving his lungs. He turns to look at Phil who’s just giving him the biggest goddamn smile, Dan gives him a slightly self conscious one in return.

Everything is so shiny, he thinks. The mist in the air hangs by his nose and sharpens the smell of the salt coming off the water. The dull fire adds light and color to the still overwhelmingly cool faces of what Dan considers are technically his peers. These are beautiful people in a beautiful setting, and even when they’re welcoming Dan feels wildly out of place.

Dan leans into Phil the entire time. He’s not unaware that Phil has started to become his anchor, his person. He realizes he’s slipping from his pact of taking care of himself. He doesn’t really care. His brain is soaked in good wine and he watches the group simply enjoy each other. They laugh and joke, and try three more dixie cups full.

Sarah plays a terrible rap song she says is valid purely because the lyrics are about gold things and it’s the night before a conference. Martyn brings out a black sheet and some paint.

“We need more banners for the delegation, all of ours are so old by now,” Cornelia explains, carefully writing the delegation name on it in gold paint.

Everything’s golden, Dan thinks. No wonder it’s so shiny.

* * *

 

By 1 am the fire’s burnt out, and everyone starts to get up to go back into the house. Exhausted, Dan leans against Phil while they walk up the wooden steps.

“I think Sarah’s sleeping in the guest room if you wanna stay with me.”

Dan’s too tired–and also maybe a little too tipsy–to even think about the 7 layers of their relationship, he just grabs his pajamas out of his bag and follows Phil along a line of steps descending to the bottom of the house. Martyn and Cornelia say goodnight at the top of the stairs, and Dan follows Phil to his room at the bottom.

Like the rest of the house, the walls are white with a few framed posters hanging, but the blue and green duvet gives the room a splash of color. It’s very Phil in a home clearly controlled by his parents’ aesthetic.

“The bathroom’s the other door if you want to change.” Phil says, opening the door next to it and pulling a couple articles of clothing out of a drawer before taking Dan’s phone and plugging both theirs in on the nightstand.

“I’m so tired I think I might actually collapse.” Phil demonstrates this by falling face first into the mattress and just staying there.

“What time did you get up this morning?” Dan asks, closing the door to the bathroom behind him.

“Six-thirty,” Phil says, clearly, so Dan figures he must have moved by now.

“Ew,” Dan replies through the door.

“You don’t get up that early for school?”

“I’m usually late to school.”

Phil snorts.

“You gonna take your contacts out?”

Phil mumbles something in response that sounds suspiciously like a no.

Dan opens the door and turns the light off before sliding into bed to the right of Phil. He’s very grateful that by nature of a weekend conference, he brought actual pajama pants and a shirt people could see him in. It makes a part of him wonder if Phil actually sleeps in Cookie Monster pajama bottoms or if his general state of dress is for his benefit.

“Phil.”

“Mmm?” Phil responds, his eyes already closed against his pillow.

“Did you set an alarm?”

“Someone will wake us up.”

“Phil.”

“What?”

“Set an alarm.”

“You do it.”

“The phones are on your side, nerd.”

Phil groans and sticks an arm out from under the blanket to search the nightstand, still facing Dan before shoving a phone in his face, eyes still closed.

“You do it, the light’s too harsh,” he mumbles.

Dan takes the phone from where it was pressed into his cheek. “This one’s yours.”

“0130.”

Dan unlocks the phone and sets an alarm for two hours from then. “Any reason or?”

“It’s just m’birthday.”

“Phil that’s next week.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you wanna do anything?”

“I haven’t really gotten that far, Dan.”

Dan reaches over Phil to put the phone down. Phil doesn’t even budge. It feels strangely intimate for best friends and Dan pretends not to know why. Phil, apparently, doesn’t.

“When you said you were coming over Martyn asked if we were dating,” Phil says, half into his pillow.

“Why does everyone think we’re dating?” Dan asks.

Phil makes a noise Dan interprets as “beats me”. Dan stays quiet for a few moments.

“I feel so out of place with all of them. Your brother especially. I mean I like him a lot it’s just he makes me feel especially inadequate.”

Phil snorts into his pillow. “Yeah, join the club.”

Dan doesn’t say anything. He notes this interesting insight into Phil’s brain, and waits a few moments to see if he says anything more. Phil’s breathing slows and Dan assumes he’s fallen asleep until he starts talking again.

“It’s hard to be seen when you learn to read at three and your brother’s already reading Harry Potter,” Phil mumbles. “But then you know, Harry Potter became my best and only friend and Martyn went out and met loads of people.”

“He’s only a year older than you though?” Dan asks.

“Two years. One grade.”

“Oh,” Dan says.

Phil exhales, muffled by his face still in the pillow. Dan wonders if he’s being so open because he can’t see Dan’s face, if it’s easier to talk when you don’t have to decode someone’s facial expressions. He remembers most of their most honest conversations have been over text, there’s some validity to that hypothesis, he figures.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “Me too.”

“It’s just,” Phil suddenly lifts his head and adjusts so he’s looking at Dan, “with the whole reading thing my parents were so impressed, and they’d praise me and compliment me, you know? But once I got to school it didn’t even matter, because it was just another thing that set me apart from everyone else.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “I had one friend in elementary school, and he left after the second grade.”

“I had friends,” Phil considers. “I just think they liked each other more than they liked me. Most of 'em, anyway.”

Dan thinks about Ellie fawning over Garrett when he first came to school, and how she stopped talking to Dan altogether for a while. Then, he thinks about her paragraphs after paragraph on Instagram about how much she loves her friends at NYU.

“I don’t think my best friend ever liked me the best,” Dan admits, quietly, almost so he doesn’t have to hear himself say it.

“I like you best,” Phil mumbles, his eyes closed again.

Dan gives one silent exhale of a laugh. “Thanks, Phil.”

Dan readjusts and settles down into his pillow.

“I’m angry,” he says, just above a whisper. “She just left me.”

“Hmm?” Phil asks.

“Ellie.” He’s quiet for another moment, thinking he’ll leave it there, that it covered enough, but he can’t and suddenly he’s talking again.

“She watched while my family fell apart and walked away once things finally broke.” Dan’s voice almost breaks. “I _needed_ her, and she left me.”

“That makes me angry too,” Phil says quietly. “I could never do that to you.”

 _Yes_. Dan thinks. _You could._

If experience taught him anything, telling someone how much they mean to you is just the first step in pushing them away. First they love you, then they take you for granted, they try and push you away, and then they leave. It’s clear and it’s consistent, and Dan just isn’t gonna risk that with a boy who doesn’t know yet that Dan is probably going to ruin everything. Regardless, he can’t stop thinking about what comes next.

_Relationship definitely hurtling towards something._

Dan wants to punch himself for thinking about memes at a time like this.

* * *

 

It’s 4 am when Dan pads into the Lester’s kitchen in his jeans and delegation sweatshirt, and his eyes practically start screaming at the light bouncing off the still dark windows.

Martyn lifts his mug in greeting from the table in the corner, also wearing his delegation sweatshirt and looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere but his kitchen at 4 in the morning.

“Hey, Dan. Sleep well?”

“No complaints,” Dan says. “Is that coffee?”

“Did you want a cup?” Phil asks, walking into the kitchen and rubbing his eyes behind his glasses.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Dan says.

Phil goes to rummage through a pull-out cabinet next to the fridge. “Mom?! Do you know where the coffee is?”

“There’s literally an entire pot sitting there, Phil,” Martyn points out.

Phil grins sheepishly. “Oops.”

“Phil don’t yell I was just in the living room.” Phil’s mom walks into the kitchen, turning the rest of the lights on.

“Ow,” Martyn says dully.

“This coffee’s getting cold, Martyn when did you make it?”

“Like an hour ago, I made it for the girls but they still aren’t up.”

“Go get them then we have to leave soon. Dan did you want a cup I could heat it up?” she asks him. Dan’s taken aback when he realizes she knows his name.

“Uh, yeah thank you. It’s nice to meet you by the way,” Dan says.

“You too sweetheart, I’ve heard so much about you.” She hands him a mug, and then gives him a hug. In an unfamiliar dark kitchen before an unknown adventure, the warmth is startling and unexpected. “It’s Kathryn, by the way.”

There’s a crash behind them, and they both turn around to look at Phil quickly trying to pick up the pieces of a broken mug.

“Sorry!” he says, his voice cracking as he squeaks.

Dan can’t help but burst into a fond smile.

* * *

 

Though the delegation’s complaints about the last bus did get them charter buses this time, they return to the same dusty camp Dan finds he’s a little more attached to than he realized.

Dan, Phil, and Pj climb off the bus and Alex immediately waves them over.

“The barrack we’re in this time is one of the new ones, it’s so much nicer,” he tells them. “If we hurry we can get the room in the corner.”

“Not having to talk to other people?” says Pj. “Fuck yeah.”

The four of them push past people to get upstairs, and drop their bags on four camp beds in a u-shape along the walls of a small room off to the side.

“I don’t even think we’re supposed to be in here I think it’s for advisors,” Phil says.

“I asked, there’s too many of us so we’re overflowing,” Alex says.

“Thank God,” Dan huffs, thinking about the last time he was here, picking a bunk in a room full of people and not once having a conversation with someone.

The four of them migrate with the rest of the delegation to the Big Top, it’s a shorter walk this time, but the group keeps cheering and Dan screams along at the top of his lungs, his smile as wide as it could possibly go with Phil’s voice in his ear marching beside him.

 _We’re the South Palm Delegation_  
_Pumpin’ out hella legislation_  
_So quite frankly in summation  
_ _We represent this generation_

“Fuck!” Phil exclaims when they near the Big Top.

“What? What is it?” Dan asks, concerned.

“There’s a hawaiian ice truck over there. Wait hold on does anyone have cash?”

Dan diggs around in his pockets and pulls out a crumpled ten dollar bill, shaking his head. “Get me one too, will you? It’s hot as balls.” 

Phil comes back with two oversized cups filled with rainbow shaved ice, and a fake purple and green lei around his neck.

“Is it rainbow because you’re uhhh fucking gay?” Alex asks. “Cause, like if so I need one too.”

Dan blinks. It occurs to him he’s never even had a conversation with Phil about his sexuality. The entire time he’s been wondering if something romantic was on the horizon, and he didn’t even know for sure if Phil even _liked_ guys. What's more, Phil didn’t know for sure if _Dan_ liked guys.

“Same,” Dan just says. He thinks that covers it casually enough. He doesn’t look at Phil.

The four of them find a space among their delegation in the thousands of flimsy white folding chairs. The Youth Governor swears them in, and Dan watches his childhood bully give a ten minute speech about why the 2000 teenagers sitting in front of him should vote for him for next year’s Secretary of State.

“It’s the same speech his sister won Speaker of the Assembly with last year,” Alex says to Dan.

Still, the moment he finishes his speech a sea of 150 black and yellow sweatshirts rises making the loudest goddamn noise Dan has ever heard. He joins in too, because fuck it.

They split off after that. Alex has four interviews scheduled for various appointed positions Phil says he probably won’t get. Phil leaves for a meeting of the Senate committee chairs, promising to text Dan when he’s done so they can meet up, and Dan rushes to the analyst chairs meeting because he’s late, of course he’s late.

Dan comes out of session somewhere deep in the camp and pulls out his phone to call Phil almost instinctively. The line is silent for a few seconds while it tries to get a signal so far from a city before it starts to ring.

“ _Yo.”_

“Where you at?”

“ _Back to back sessions.”_

“For real? It’s almost dinner.”

“ _Do you know how much harder it is to be a legislative chair?_

“But I’m bored and lonely,” Dan whines.

He hears Phil sigh on the other end.

_“All right, where are you?_

Dan smiles.

“Between number 28 and 29 and hurry up bitch.”

It’s five minutes until Dan sees Phil from across a trench covered in orange netting, looking around for Dan like the giant gangly lost deer he is, a blue denim jacket over his delegation sweatshirt and his green and orange camera bag hanging by his side.

Dan waves.

“Hiya,” Phil says with a smile, removing the lens from the body of the camera and stowing it in his bag.

“Take anything good?” Dan asks.

Phil shakes his head. “I’ve been stopping at every call for every election we’ve had someone run in and we keep getting beaten out.”

“How is that even possible? We’re the second largest delegation.”

“Yeah exactly, people are bitter. They also might have figured out the lineup for Miles’ political party was made to benefit us entirely and aren’t very happy about it.

“Oops.”

“Yeah.” Phil swings his arm and slides into place on the step below dan Dan on the metal staircase outside the cabin.

“How was session?”

“I ate...a lot of Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups,” Dan says.

“What do you even _do_ in your program area?”

Dan shrugs. “Let me know when you find out will you?”

Phil tosses his head back and looks at Dan for a moment before smiling. “You’re an idiot.”

“You’re the one who hangs out with me though, so who's really the idiot?”

“Still you,” Phil replies, his smile not even faltering as he looks at Dan with those stupid bambi eyes and god Dan might be just a little bit in love with him.

He shoves Phil with his knee.

“How was senate?” Dan asks.

“My committees pretty good, a lot of sophomores hoping to get better positions so we’ll see how it shakes out.”

“I highlighted your name in my program,” Dan says. “I didn’t realize there were only like, twelve chairs.”

“I didn’t think I’d get the position to be honest,” Phil replies. “My resume wasn’t great, I didn’t even get the position I wanted in SPY.”

Dan frowns. “What did you want?”

“Parliamentarian. Obviously I didn’t get it, the officers kinda just picked their friends for applied positions.”

“Well yeah, aren’t you in that friend group?” “No I’m the nerdy little brother, which is probably the only reason I got appointed as a media correspondent anyway.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

Phil shrugs. Dan flips through his program, trying to find something to change the subject.

“I swear to God if the only election we win is Nick-fucking-Harper’s I might actually scream,” Dan says.

Phil snorts. “Speaking of idiots. If it wasn’t for Martyn and SPY being way too big he’d be out of the race by now.”

Martyn, in his brilliance, realised his statewide candidate is barely functional as a delegate and a much better celebrity. He had started campaign where you can take a selfie with Nick’s campaign poster that you then post with a hashtag, and just by nature of Y and G fame people actually do it, including Dan and Phil. Dan’s amazed at what love for his delegation will get him to do.

“Can you carry this sign around for a few hours?” Martyn asks Dan when they bump into each other at dinner.

Dan says yes without even really thinking about it.

“I thought you hated him?” Phil asks as they walk together to the political party meetings to vote for a Youth Governor and Sec of State candidate.

It was good for the delegation, Dan thinks. It was good to get on Martyn’s good side. It might even be good for him. He covers his sweatshirt with buttons with Nick’s face and name, and takes it as a symbol of the community rather than one of shame.

The weekend is filled with quick and subtle politics, and Dan is in awe of how much behind the scenes manipulation takes place in something seemingly so low-stakes. Being the second biggest Delegation, Nick Harper is already basically guaranteed to make the top two. Miles is in charge of running one of the four political parties this year, and naturally Martyn, determined to win, registers him with said party along with a delegate with a weak background who’s from a small delegation. Miles does the same with their Youth Governor candidate, a small brunette named Georgia Lee. It takes almost nothing for them to become the party nominees, it’s genius.

“Thank fuck for Martyn, honestly,” Alex says. “Or we wouldn’t have a candidate at all this year.”

“He spent like a week sitting with Nick at the Y rehearsing that speech,” Phil says, pushing the tarp door open and stepping out into the dark.

“Oh my god,” Dan says as the wind suddenly hits his face.

“This is way too cold.” Phil pulls up his hood.

“What the hell, we’re in Florida not God damn Pennsylvania,” Pj complains.

“Here, huddle for warmth guys.” Alex pulls his hood up and links his arms with Pj, sticking his hands in his sweatshirt pocket. Phil and Pj do the same, linking arms with Dan.

“You think we can make it back to the barracks without actually freezing?” Pj asks.

“Doubt it. Though, becoming a literal block of ice seems pretty metal,” Dan says.

“We can stop at the dance, the obnoxious sweaty teenagers will warm us right up I’m sure,” Alex says dryly.

“You realize we are, in fact, obnoxious sweaty teenagers?” Phil points out. “Well, maybe not so sweaty at the moment.”

“All right, and march!” Dan cries. The four of them start to shuffle against the wind, waddling and as close as humanly possible.

“We actually look like Penguins,” Phil says.

Dan laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. The others join in. The entire scene feels like it’s physically soaring, he feels overwhelmingly loved. It already feels like a memory.

There’s something about having a common goal with two thousand people Dan can’t quite put his finger on. The instant connection with strangers, regardless if they end up speaking or simply passing each other in session, is something he never anticipated.

They make it back to their bunks, laughing and stumbling through the door to their alcove.

“Fuck, I’m starving. Please tell me we still have snacks,” Alex says, rubbing his hands together while heading for his sleeping bag.

Phil pulls a Trader Joes bag out of the locker along the wall and drops it in the middle of the floor, the paper rustling loudly as it thuds against the tile.

Pj grabs the half-demolished box of Joe’s Joe’s.

“These will never be as good as real oreos and that's just a fact.” Nevertheless, he splits a cookie open and scrapes the cream with his teeth not breaking eye contact with Phil.

“I’m feeling very violated here,” Phil says, moving to grab his sleeping bag and wrapping it around himself before sitting cross legged on the floor next to Dan.

“Is it bad if I like, don’t want to go home tomorrow?” Alex says, opening up a bag of veggie chips.

“I feel like that’s a pretty reasonable, if not shared sentiment,” Dan says.

“I don’t want to go to school at least,” Pj says. “Dress code in the winter might be the next thing we overthrow the bourgeois for.”

“Oh god, yeah. I might actually have to start wearing a blazer again,” Phil says grabbing a few of the cookies and handing some to Dan.

“I miss middle school, man, those polo shirts were comfortable,” Pj says wistfully.

“The thing is though,” Alex interjects. “Can you throw over the bourgeoisie if you’re complicit in their actions?”

“I like our school!” Phil says.

“I’d like school too if we had your campus,” Dan says.

“No you wouldn’t,” Phil responds. “You’d find a reason to hate school regardless.”

“Shut up,” Dan tells him. He leans back against the bed frame and looks up at Phil, who grins.

“I don’t hate school,” Alex interjects. “I just hate the way it makes me feel.”

“What do you mean?” Dan asks.

“Just going home at the end of the day, having my parents ask me questions where I can’t give them real answers. They’re hella conservative compared to you guy's parents.”

“My moms not conservative but I still don’t tell her anything,” Dan says. “I don’t know, things have been weird since she left my Dad, it’s like we’re more alone now. We don’t know how to relate to each other.”

“I think a lot of the time parents are just allies, you know?” Pj muses.

“If that,” Dan points out.

“Mine work well together,” Alex says. “They just don’t know how to work with me.”

“Isn’t that just part of being a teenager though?” Phil says. “My parents adjusted as we got older, changed their opinions and learned with us. Especially after I came out I think.”

“My parents tolerate my sexuality, but I don’t think they understand it,” Alex says. “It’s like, it’s Y and G that makes me feel good about it.”

“Everything feels better here,” Dan agrees.

“Yeah, exactly.”

It’s quiet for a few moments. Dan nibbles on a handful of veggie chips, his eyes starting to drift closed every couple of seconds. He leans against the sheer of Phil’s sleeping bag until Phil opens his arm to share the coverage. Dan exhales. The soft company is grounding, settling. His mind quiets.

“You know when you’re on an airplane, and time is suspended? You have no responsibilities, or pressure. It’s truly a single moment?” Pj asks, breaking the silence. “That’s how conferences feel.”

It’s a beat before anyone says anything. Phils the one who speaks.

“Immortal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you'd like to reblog this fic on tumblr or contact me you can find me at [racheldaddow](http://racheldaddow.tumblr.com/post/182332258741/all-gold-everything-part-one-part-two-the) on tumblr
> 
> thank you so much to den and jen for betaing this chapter...multiple times.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild drug and alcohol use this chapter

 

_I want to share with you_

_That I find it rare_

_To find a friend like you_

_Don't you know_

_We're skipping stones out on the open road_

_We're watching movies through a telescope_

_But, friends are friends until you get so close_

\- Teenage Bones, Noirre

 

Dan sets his duffel bag at his bedroom door, not bothering to unpack it save for his phone cord at the top before crashing back onto his bed, sitting with his back up against the corner wall and opening his laptop.

It starts slowly. First, it’s a few congratulations posts for Nick Harper making it to the top two candidates that would be decided at the next conference, and it's two hours before the first person posts something else in the facebook group, a sophomore named Becca Davis.

_I miss you all so much wtf. This was such an incredible weekend, I’ve cried like three times._

It’s a simple post. People like and comment their love below, there are a few more short posts with similar sentiments.

_I'm different now. More information to come after further reflection._

Dan just sits there, refreshing the page, determined to hear every single person who needed to speak. Alex, of course, with all his deep rooted love and patriotism for the delegation and the program at large, is one of the first to get deeper.

_I'm feeling really sappy and there are so many emotions in my head and it's really hard to put what I want to say to all of you into words and/or coherent sentences, but I just love all of you so much. Thank you, once again, for helping me realize that anywhere I go with you all is where I truly feel the most loved and accepted._

It takes about two hours for the group to completely spiral out of control, but when it happens, it happens,

_Thank you all so much for making my first T &E 2 experience absolutely incredible and unforgettable. I'm so proud to be in such an amazing delegation with so many smart, talented, and well dressed people. I can truly say South Palm is my family after this. It is so weird to think that I haven't even spoken to about more than half of the delegation, yet I feel so inspired and loved by all of you. Thank you♥_

One of the officers posts an entire poem in a Dr Seuss style, before adding,

_i luv u lots and just read green eggs and ham and thought I was dr. suess and started crying for no reason (delayed reaction? love for food I can never have? idk but y'all my favorite and i love lovin u n all that good stuff that makes you feel good and makes me want to hug your faces into oblivion but i wouldn't want to really do that because you all have really nice faces and are probably going to have very beautiful daughters and maybe some average looking sons but regardless ALL OF THEM SHOULD JOIN Y &G TOO ok im done soz)_

His phone buzzes, it’s Phil.

_Are you seeing this??_

Dan replies instantly.

_I didn’t know it could feel like this._

The knowledge that he was not the only one who felt alone, who felt alien, who then had a collective experience he needed to put words to, was a comforting revelation and one Dan never, even thought to have.

His hands start moving across the keyboard without even thinking about it. He types and types and lets go of everything he’s let fall off his tongue since the start of the school year. He talks about feeling lost at the beginning of the year, he talks about losing and leaving a world where he was once so loved because it simply no longer existed. He talks about finding Y&G, and not having a place and being so much smaller than everyone until slowly, things changed.

He signs off with, _Things feel radiant again. I love you all so much. Thank you for everything._

Dan adds his phone number at the bottom, and clicks post. There’s a strange feeling like a part of him has picked up and drifted up towards the corner of room before fading into he can’t reach. Dan’s lungs open up, and he laughs a single, happy laugh.

Dan can feel the change in the atmosphere walking into the first meeting after T&E 2. He waits for Phil in the parking lot, bouncing up and down until Cornelia’s black 2007 Ford Explorer pulls into a space and he finds himself walking up to Phil at a faster pace than he normally walks, pulling him into a tight hug.

“I missed you, is that weird?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Absolutely.”

Phil’s birthday is arguably a low-key experience. Ten to fifteen kids well versed in speech and debate doesn’t _seem_ like a formula for any kind of crazy, but the wind swallows the sounds of laughter and music coming from the beach at the bottom of the hill.

The reality of the Lester’s being the convienal South Palm Youth and Government social party fun fun house meant the group had already separated into subcategories. Alex and Olive sit on one side of the firepit, Miles one spot over sucking on a vape pen every few minutes. Martyn sits at the center of the fireplace in a big red canvas chair, Cornelia to his left and Sarah to her right, a package of blue solo cups wrapped in plastic beneath her and one in each of their hands. It’s nine o’clock and people are wrapped in blankets and big jackets, Dan sits leaning up against Phil in a canvas folding chair that brings him back to the one time his family had tried a camping trip. This feels so much warmer.

“I’m just saying, if we don’t subsidize small farms, I’m not going to be able to get any more of that sweet, dank, artisan bread,” Sarah says.

“I believe in fighting climate change, because like, bread,” Martyn responds, changing the pitch of his voice.

“Small farms aren’t where we get most of our bread though,” Olive points out, poking the fire with a stick.

“But, bread man,” Allie says, scrunching her face.

Dan sits in the middle of the circle, not at all understanding why this stuff is cool, or funny, but it is and he’s laughing along. He can feel Phil’s body shake with laughter against him, and Dan can’t help but fall just a little more for him with every move of his chest.

Cornelia comes back to the group and hands Dan and Phil their second drinks. Dan takes a sip, it’s a cranberry-vodka-lemonade mixture she’s apparently fond of making, and took Phil about three minutes to finish tops.

“It’s the only thing she knows how to make,” Martyn had told him. Cornelia had glared at him. Dan had laughed.

It’s good, regardless. Dan can barely taste the alcohol. He looks over at Phil, who smiles at him before turning to Pj on his other side.

“You sent in our roommate preferences right?” he asks.

Pj furrows his brows. “Yes?” he says, confused. “And Alex sent it in literally timestamped one minute after the email went out.”

“I’m not ashamed bitch,” Alex yells from across the pit. Sarah laughs next to him.

“It’s you, me, Alex, Pj, yeah?” Dan clarifies.

Phil nods. “It’s gonna get uhhhh hella lit as the kids say.”

“Are we at the Hilton again?” Alex asks Martyn.

Martyn nods. “Our bougie fucking delegation would throw a fit if we were at the Governor's Inn.”

“I’m absolutely fine with that.” Pj says, taking another sip of his beer.

“We’re taking up almost an entire floor this year,” Miles says. “That’s how much the delegations grown.”

“Wow,” Dan says.

“I was right next to some advisors last year,” Martyn recalls. “Made it a little hard to break ratio.”

“Our Speaker of the House?” Pj asks, gasping and clutching a hand to his chest. “Say it ain’t so!”

“Ratio?” Olive asks.

“They have this rule where girls and guys have to be in a two to three ratio of one gender and another when they’re in a hotel room,” Alex says. “Which is super heteronormative.”

“It also doesn’t account for Y sanctioned orgys.” Pj points out.

Phil pulls a face. “Not sure if I wanna share a room with you anymore.”

Pj winks at him.

“You guys could work in another world,” Olive muses.

There’s a pang of annoyance shot through Dan’s brain. He reaches over to take a sip from Phil’s cup, despite his not being empty yet. Phil doesn’t react past his eyes following the motion instinctively.

Miles raises his eyebrows at Dan from across the circle, taking another puff of his vape.

“Can I try that?” Dan asks, in a sudden test of boldness.

“It’s not nicotine,” Miles tells him.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I didn’t know you smoked weed,” Miles says, getting up to hand the vape to Dan.

“Me neither,” Phil says. He’s smiling though, and Dan knows he can tell he’s a weed virgin.

Dan shrugs, and takes the vape from Miles.

“Just inhale and press the button there,” Miles instructs him. Dan takes a long drag, sputtering as he exhales. His chest feels like there’s glass trying to come up through his throat. Phil hands him a bottle of water from under his chair.

“You doing ok?” He asks. Dan nods as he hands the vape back to Miles, who offers it to Phil.

“Your vape made me super paranoid last time,” Phil says warily.

“All right man. This one's an Indica, though,” Miles says, kindly and Dan can tell it’s truly just to help him make an informed decision. He wonders if peer pressure was just something adults made up. He’s spent five months hanging out with kids much cooler and older than him and any substance that’s been offered has only been done so compassionately.

“I don’t know what that means,” Phil says.

“It should be fine for you, Phil, if you wanna try it,” Martyn tells him.

Phil takes a smaller hit than Dan, and coughs just a little less, passing it to Pj, who has absolutely no hesitation or perceived discomfort.

Dan’s head starts to feel a little lighter and his body a little heavier. He sinks into his chair and closer against Phil’s side. There’s a warmth in his chest and he smiles at how truly fond he is of the people around him.

Dan lets his head fall to Phil’s shoulder. His heart races a little until he can feel Phil’s head rest on top of his, and suddenly it’s pounding. He can hear the thumps against his chest louder than the crashing waves far from them.

Nobody’s paying any attention to them. Everything just is. It’s like it’s all been slowly falling into place for a while now.

The conversation dies down and Miles ends up heading out, taking a few of the others with him. He gives Phil a big hug and a genuine “Happy birthday.” Martyn and Cornelia and their handful of friends head inside to look for a video of a speech the Youth Governor of some years ago gave, Alex tailing along happy to have any excuse to hang out with the officers as well as nerd out over the program.

Pj sighs loudly. “I think it’s bedtime for me.”

Dan hums, still warm from the weed. “Cozy.”

Pj just stares at them, a little unimpressed.

“I think...we should probably head up too before we actually fall asleep here, Dan,” Phil says in a low, quiet voice.

Phil nudges Dan’s head with his shoulder, and Dan stands up, groaning.

“I don’t wanna carry these things back.”

“I’ll do it but only because it’s Phil’s birthday,” Pj says. “Now go the fuck to sleep.”

Dan holds his hand out to Phil and Phil takes it, wobbling a little and following Dan to the wooden steps leading up to the house.

Dan doesn’t let go of Phil’s hand. Phil doesn’t let go either.

The wind blows against the back of their heads, Phil uses his other hand to push his hair out of his eyes, stumbling as he does so, but still not letting go of Dan’s hand. Even in Dan’s slow, muddled thoughts, a part of him recognises that this is intentional. Everything Phil does seems to be intentional, and Dan is _terrified_ but his brain keeps saying, _go on, go on, move forward, this is it._

This has always been it.

He follows Phil up the stairs, his heart pounding, feeling exposed, waiting to see what came next, because really, he knows, things aren’t gonna stay like this forever. He won’t be able to spend another week before he says the wrong thing about how he feels about Phil to him or to someone else. It’ll get around like it always does and it’ll no longer some precious thing between them.

Phil stops outside the back door, it’s dark inside the house and Dan realizes everyone else must already be gone or asleep. It’s just them for a single moment, and Dan smiles softly because he feels _good._ Everything’s really good.

Phil drops his hand. Dan tries not to wonder why until Phil suddenly opens his mouth to speak.

“I wanna tell you something but I’m scared you’ll think it’s just because I’m drunk, or high, or both, or whatever,” Phil says, soundly.

Dan’s breath catches. Even knowing logically and realistically what’s likely to come next, he immediately feels like a small child who’s done something wrong.

“Just tell me,” he says, begging the moment to be over so they could be in the afterward.

The promise is great, but he wants the reality.

Phil’s not looking at him, his hair is down by his eyes and they’re darted to the side. It’s quiet and sooner or later Pj is going to come up the stairs and the moment will be gone for how knows long.

“I’m..struggling here,” Phil stumbles through nervous laughter.

“I need you to say it,” Dan replies. It’s as brave as he’s going to get.

Phil tosses his hair out of his face and bites his lip. It’s incredibly endearing and just a little bit hot.

Dan flashes on every time an upperclassman has told him to put himself out there and take risks and introduce yourself to new people and form bonds, and he just doesn’t know how to do it yet. He wants to be there, but he’s not, and he needs Phil to be brave for him, just for a while.

“I like, I really like you and I think you like me too and I don’t wanna fall asleep next to you and pretend it’s platonic because I could just be really fucking stupid but I think we both know its not.”

It’s like the fucking heavens could open up and swallow Dan whole and he wouldn’t even notice. He lets out the breath he’s been unconsciously holding.

“Yeah, me too, to all of that, I - yeah.”

Phil smiles. Dan smiles. There's a creak of a gate and the thudding of three canvas chairs being tossed to the side.

“You guys just standing out here or?” Pj asks, raising an eyebrow.

“We were just waiting for you,” Dan recovers, smoothly.

Phil opens the sliding glass door to the kitchen and reaches out to flick a light on. The dull light against the warm tile highlights the black outside the windows, and Dan squints his eyes.

Pj takes a glass from the cabinet above the countertop. “I think I gotta call an Uber I’m losing it.”

“I can grab the air mattress for you we can stick it in my room,” Phil says.

Dan squeezes his eyes tighter at the mechanical humming sound coming from the fridge pouring water into Pj’s glass. He instinctively leans a little closer to Phil, the warmth radiating from his body comforting in the sensory overload of his high.

Pj downs his glass of water in one go. “It’s not an air mattress if you have to re-inflate it halfway through the night.”

“Yes it is, it’s just a _bad_ air mattress.” Phil says, grinning.

He sticks his arm out behind Dan to lean against the countertop. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and if Dan was any more sober he’d crack a joke or deflect in any other way possible, but this just feels nice and right and pretending nothing's changed is easier than anything else in the moment.

It’s a testament to a rush of something they built together and don’t completely understand, but he and Phil are just that. It’s Dan and Phil and they’re best friends and maybe more but while everything’s on the cusp of changing it feels exactly the same.

“Too late man, my new best friend Akim and his Honda are on their way already. Maybe he’ll have a working air mattress,” Pj says.

“If Akim offers you an air mattress I think that would be a good time to get out of the car,” Dan points out.

They say their goodbyes and Pj gives them both a hug and Phil a “happy birthday” and Dan follows Phil back down the stairs to his bedroom.

“Do you have pajama pants I can borrow?” He asks.

Phil turns the light on in his closet and disappears before returning in _Lego_ pajama bottoms and handing Dan a pair of green plaid ones. Dan pulls them on over his underwear and behind a half closed door before climbing into bed to the right of Phil.

The sheets are soft and clean and Dan closes his eyes and lets his heavy limbs gratefully sink into the mattress. He feels Phil move closer to him and rest his head on his shoulder. There’s a shot of something tight in his chest and Dan forgets to take the next breath before boldy, instinctively, wrapping an arm around Phil.

“Alarm?” Phil mumbles.

“Fuuuck that,” Dan draws out.

“Good.”

There’s a weight on Dan’s chest as Phil adjusts to sleep, an arm thrown over his stomach.

“Happy birthday, Phil.”

Dan feels Phils mouth turn up against his chest.

* * *

They don’t talk about it when they wake up.

The sun is coming through the windows like it’s been hanging for a while when Dan reaches over Phil for his phone on the nightstand.

“What time is it?” Phil asks, muttering.

“Eleven-thirty,” Dan says, unlocking the phone with his thumb and reaching to scroll down his notifications.

Phil sighs and turns back into the pillows and towards Dan.

“My mom put a little money in my account I think I was gonna try and go shopping for clothes for Tallahassee if you wanna come,” Dan says, adjusting back down into the pillows as well.

“‘Mmm yeah I’ll go with you. Best places are like, Goodwill. There’s one in that complex with the Panera that’s not too far, my Dad could probably take us,” Phil says, dull and quiet, reaching for his phone.

Dan lets himself settle into the warmth around him, listening to Phil tap on his phone for a few moments before -

“Yeah, Dad says he’ll take us if we take an Uber back,” he says, his voice still groggy and gravely from sleep. There’s another vibration from his phone. “And if we’re ready in twenty minutes.”

Dan groans loudly.

“Yeah, same,” Phil comments, kicking the duvet off with his feet unskillfully, swinging to stand up before wobbling a bit.

"You doin' alright?" Dan asks, grinning.

"I don't get hangovers," Phil mutters.

"Apparently you do."

“I’m not nauseous I’m just...very groggy. Kinda feel like my heads been stepped on.”

Dan raises his eyebrows once.

“Shut up.”

Phil's Dad is quiet, lets them talk in the backseat without much interference and asks Dan a few polite questions about school and what program area he's in and how he's liking living in Florida again. It's nice, but Dan can't help but be unnerved anyway when Phil reaches over subtly and laces their fingers together.

_my heart is racing so fast i think it might actually jump into my throat and choke me_

he texts phil with his other hand. Phil's phone buzzes and he looks at it, smiling at the screen before typing out a response.

_I'm cpr certified, we're good._

Dan feels slightly dizzy after that.

Shopping is always an overwhelming experience for Dan. The fluorescent lights scream and remind him he has no idea where to start. So far all he’s been able to find is a beige suit he wouldn’t buy even if it was the last thing available. He half-heartedly flicks through the racks while Phil stands behind him reading off of his phone.

“All participants must be dressed in business attire from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Dress slacks or suit pants, button-down collared shirt with a tie or bow tie, with a blazer, sport coat or cardigan. Attire for Closing Joint Session - slash - Governor’s Banquet may also include tuxedo with collared shirt and tie.”

“No problem let me just get my tuxedo.”

Phil smiles. “It also says clothing should be in conservative colors or muted patterns, which is right up your alley but a shame for the red button down I have just waiting in my closet.”

Dan gives up on the rack in front of him before turning to the one behind him, Phil taking two steps so he’s still in Dan’s space. There’s static buzzing between their shoulders, and Dan leans a little closer just because he’s allowed to. It’s nice, but it’s uncharted and Dan’s body freezes just at the thought of doing anything more, regardless of how much he might want to.

“Here, what about this?” Phil asks, pulling out a black tweed blazer that looked only a little but bigger than what Dan needed.

“I like that, with a white shirt?”

“And a bow-tie,” Phil says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I don’t think I even own a bow-tie,” Dan says.

“I’m sure we can find one,” Phil says, picking up the price tag and glancing at it before showing it to Dan.

“I wonder if there are pants, go look on the other rack. I’ll look for another blazer, yeah?” Dan says, gesturing to the far corner where the men’s dress pants were located.

Phil nods quickly, his hand brushing Dan’s arm as he walks away with the blazer. Dan’s heart skips.

He flicks through a second rack, passing over the navys and beiges before settling on something Ralph Lauren and form fitting in a solid black to try on. He finds Phil flicking through a book in the back by the dressing room with a pair of pants that were pretty damn close to the color of the blazer they found earlier, both draped along his forearm.

“Get distracted?” Dan asks, grinning.

Phil yelps, the paperback book slamming shut with a dull thud.

“I found a copy of _Cosmos_ for two dollars,” Phil says.

“I don’t know what that is,” Dan says, taking the clothes from Phil.

“It’s Carl Sagan's most popular book,” he explains. “He’s a co-founder of string theory.”

“Phil, I’m getting a B minus at best in chem”

“It’s like, ok there are two methods we use to understand the universe yeah? Which are of course, Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.” Phil says.

Dan blinks, stupidly. “Sure.”

“String theory basically tries to bridge the gap by saying that in addition to all the regular particles that make up the universe, those particles are made up of even smaller vibrating strings of energy.”

“Ok,” Dan replies, “and you understand that?”

Phil sighs. “No,” he says, the sound ringing out. “Not as well as I’d like to.”

“Right, well I’m gonna go change over there then.” Dan says.

“Yeah, yeah.” Phil says, his eyes drawing back to the book.

He’s still reading when Dan gets back, the articles of clothing now in Phil’s hands replaced by something that looked suspiciously like black denim.

“I thought this was strict business wear only,” Dan says.

Phil looks up again before tucking the book between his knees and holding up a black denim jacket on a hanger.

“Twenty bucks,” he notes.

Dan takes the jacket from Phil, looking inside at the tag on the collar. “I wouldn’t even know what to wear it with.”

“Get Martyn to style you. Or just say fuck it, who cares what you wear with it?”

“Oh, walk around Tallahassee with just a denim jacket on? No thanks,” Dan teases.

“Yeah. You do that and I’ll finish this book and walk around in a lab coat it’ll be great,” Phil replies, seriously.

Dan raises his eyebrows.

“What?” Phil asks

“Nothing,” Dan says, throwing the jacket over his shoulder. “It’s just that’s kinda hot.”

“Yeah?” Phil grins.

“I’m checking out now,” Dan says, turning away. He meets Phil at the door, pushing it open with a ding of the bell, bags in hand and squinting at the sunlight.

“Achievement unlocked,” Phil smiles.

“Adult attire acquired, charisma levels up,” Dan responds.

Phil looks up at the sky for a moment before looking back down at his phone.

"It's almost five, I should probably be doing homework soon," he says dejected.

"You wanna call an uber?" Dan asks, a tiny bit of anxiety negging at the back of his brain at the thought of separating and going back home alone.

"Food first?" Phil counters. "I swear to god if I don't actually inhale an entire burrito right about now - "

"All right all right, Chipotle it is," Dan laughs, tossing the shopping bag back to hang over his shoulder and turning in the direction of the end of the strip mall.

“I’m so excited for Tallahassee I think I might spontaneously combust at any moment,” Phil says.

“Yeah, same,” Dan responds. “If it’s anything like t-and-e two especially.”

“It’s even better,” Phil says wistfully. “Everyone’s exhausted and working their asses off and the lines at all the restaurants in the area take ten minutes to get through but then when it’s over we’re all crying in the friendship circle.”

“Friendship circle?” Dan asks, pushing the glass door open and holding it open for a moment for Phil to follow.

“We do it at the end of the conference. All delegations do but since ours is so big I think it’s even more emotional, we’re all just feeding off each others stories and feelings.”

Dan steps up to the counter, vaguely mumbling his order to a semi-present twenty-something who Dan watches put a tortilla in the warmer instead of choosing to make eye contact with said stranger, Phil following suit.

"What are you doing put that away," Dan says when Phil reaches for his wallet. "It's your birthday weekend and you came shopping with me instead of sleeping, I've got it."

The corners of Phil's mouth twitch up a little. "All right, fair," he resigns, picking up both baskets and leading them both to a table in the corner. Dan shoves the shopping bag under the table with his foot.

"See like - lines are never that short during MLC either," Phil says, unwrapping the foil on his quesadilla. "There are two-thousand teenagers all trying to feed themselves in a short period of time, getting a slice of pizza is hell even."

"Sounds like it," Dan says.

"Yeah," Phil says wistfully. "It's amazing."

It's silent for a while, Dan's reminded of his dad at the dinner table conversations of his childhood referring to it as "the happy sound of munching." Maybe it’s the nostalgia he feels for an event that hasn't even started that brings him to another era, maybe it's simply the reality of finding something new, he muses.

"Do you think," Dan begins, "that being a part of something special makes you special?"

Phil raises his eyebrows.

"Fuck off," Dan says, kicking his shin under the table.

Phil giggles, tongue poking between his teeth. It's incredibly endearing and Dan's whole body softens just watching it happen.

"I mean, yeah, I do," Phil says finally, answering the question. "I think the power of a group focused on a singular positive goal is one of the most special things you can be a part of."

"But does it make you special?" Dan continues.

"To some people I guess, " Phil responds. "I think if you manage to connect with at least one person that might be special enough."

Dan blinks, nodding slowly in consideration before Phil sighs.

"Then again, what do I know?"

“A whole hell of a lot,” Dan tells him. “You’ve been like, my in to this whole world.”

Phil looks up at him. “Really?”

"Yeah, man."

Phil pauses. "That's interesting." He takes a sip from his straw, the slurping sound of an empty cup reverberating.

They sit in silence again, neither wanting to get up and break the moment until Dan gives up and looks at his phone.

"It's almost five, I should get going I have a few late assignments I have to do by tomorrow."

Phil tosses his hair out of his eyes with a swish of his head, as he's so prone to do. It makes Dan want to take back his sentence.

"You wanna see how long the wait is for an Uber?" Phil asks, getting up from the table and clearing their things.

"Five minutes."

"All right, I'll call one too then."

They head out the door, standing awkwardly until Dan gets a notification that his ride is a minute away.

"At least we got some good stuff today," Phil says.

“Yeah,” Dan says. He feels a bit like there's a barrier at the top of his throat restricting the natural flow of air into his lungs. They’re at an impasse again. Why are they always at an impasse?

 _It’s ‘cause you’re scared._ Dan’s brain tells him. _Everyone leaves you for a reason so now you’re too scared to do anything, you’re useless, you’re-_

In a surge of pettiness against himself, of determination to move forward, he cuts his monologue short, cups Phil’s face in his hand, and kisses him.

_Finally._

It’s like music literally swells around Dan’s head. Phil’s lips are soft and his skin feels lovely beneath the tips of Dan’s fingers and, oh god he’s kissing back ( _he’s kissing back!)_ and Dan has the overwhelming sensation like this is exactly where he needs to be when he breaks the kiss and meets Phil’s smile with the same warm enthusiasm.

Phil takes his hand just for the last few moments before the car arrives, and they stand in a comfortable silence. Things are good, Dan thinks, with the very great and immediate possibility that it’ll get even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you millie and den for betaing this chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there - 
> 
> there is a cw for a mention of suicide and a suicide attempt neither featuring a primary character. 
> 
> thank you so much to ellie and logan for looking over this one.

_Elope with me Miss Private and we'll sail around the world  
__I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl  
__How many nights of talking in hotel rooms can you take?  
__How many nights of limping round on pagan holidays?  
__Oh elope with me in private and we'll set something ablaze  
__A trail for the devil to erase_  
-piazza new york catcher, belle & sebastian

 

It’s five-thirty in the morning on the Wednesday before Valentines Day when Dan hugs his mother goodbye at the tiny Boca airport.

“Have the best time,” Karen tells him, as he gets out of the car. She means it, and once again Dan feels exposed.

The lobby is almost empty, Dan’s rolling suitcase drags across the carpet until he catches an advisor’s eye and they hand him his ticket and he turns the corner to find a sea of various blocks of sweatshirts in the form of the rest of the statewide leadership based in the area.

He looks around at the groups of people laughing and joking and sipping coffee before reflexively reaching in his pocket and dialling Phils number. 

“Calm your tits I’m ten minutes away,” he answers the phone with.

“Ok, look,” Dan says, amusement in his voice.

“Go through security and get in the Starbucks line it’s gonna be hella long.”

Dan checks his bag in not making eye contact with the attendant before awkwardly shuffling through the cattle like line before settling in a line that may be just as crowded and chaotic.

"Boo," a voice says dully behind him. Dan turns to see Pj, eyes sparkling and in his delegation sweatshirt with headphones around his neck.

"Run out of cooler people to hang out with?" Dan teases.

"Don't tell anyone."

They wade through security and Dan's eyes threaten to fall closed, but his mind is buzzing with excitement. He sees high ranking officers, impressive leadership, at least three of the top 5 candidates for Youth Governor, laughing and joking with their friends in their own delegation colors.

“I don’t think there’s anyone here who isn’t in Y and G,” Dan says to Pj.

“There’s one couple over there - no they’re advisors.”

Dan feels small in comparison to these Y and G giants, some whose names he’s known since opening session way back in November. He’s only here on accident, but he’s _here_ he’s _**one of them.**_

They wade into the mile long line and the dull smell of coffee mixed with the dust of the carpet smells like anticipation.

“Phils on his way,” Dan says, looking at his phone and rolling his eyes when the next text comes in with Phil’s coffee order and showing it to Pj.

“Boy likes his sugar,” he deadpans.

“I seriously can’t be expected to ask for that,” Dan complains.

He does it anyway, of course. Pj gets distracted by a friend he knows through NIC and Dan meets Phil at the gate. Electricity courses through his his head when he sees him, his arms buzzing just the same. Making the transition from best friends to boyfriends had so far been seamless, which Dan suppouses should’ve been a hint this is where they were headed all along, but everything’s just so _new_ and _unknown_ and he’s not quite sure how close he’s allowed.

“Here’s your morning milkshake,” Dan says as par a customary introduction, handing the drink out to Phil with a sarcastic grin which Phil returns with an equal enthusiasm.

“Good morning to you too,” he says, taking the drink from Dan and licking away the whipped cream poking out of the cup. The same dull buzz seems to bounce and echo off Phil when their fingers touch and Dan doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

There’s a safe luxury of going to different schools, seeing each other for a few hours once a week unless otherwise planned. Skype and iMessage and Snapchat let you test the waters of the emotional, rely on and enjoy that bond, without having to think about things like physical boundaries.

Dan’s saved from having to examine it further by the bustle of leaders, candidates, the same old crowd of people who were much cooler than Dan in every aspect.

“Oh god I’m obsessed with her,” one girl says behind Dan. He turns his head to find Maya Lopez walking down the corridor laughing with a few friends in tow. She catches Dan’s eye and waves. He waves back.

The entire tiny plane is made up of leadership, it’s a free for all there are no assigned seats and Dan ends up separated from Phil and at the very back of the plane next to a girl already in a Banana Republic blazer with a laptop open, a small enamel pin with the Florida state seal fastened on her lapel.

“Katie,” she introduces herself with a single fingered salute.

“Dan,” he responds, settling back into his seat. He tries to peer up and over the seat in a hopeful yet futile attempt at a view of the top of Phil’s head.

“What’s your program area?” she asks, her eyes drifting from the long document in front of her back to Dan.

“I’m a Legislative Analyst chair,” he tells her. “What about you?”

“I’m in the Governor's Cabinet actually,” she replies with a sort of settled pride. It’s the same sense of responsible power Dan was startled with his very first meeting what feels like so long ago.

Here, in the sky with four hundred other people who earned their spot, he doesn’t feel so different from her.

Dan pulls out his own laptop in an effort to read last minute bills and briefs he’s been putting off since practically the last conference, but his mind is whirring with the feeling of collective excitement in the shared air of the small plane.

It's a blur of giddiness and excitement while Dan stands close to Phil as he descends to baggage claim. Phones are brought out and memories are added to Snapchat stories every change of pace. Dan's bouncing on the balls of his feet and all he can think is _I'm here I'm here I'm here._

Everyone seems somehow to intuitively know where they're going. The walk from the hotel to the capitol building, the walk from the capitol to the convention center, even every shop window with the YMCA logo in it welcoming young patrons. It's all within a few blocks of each other in a glorified rectangle and Dan finds himself yearning for the alternate universe in which he found all of this sooner.

Dan, Phil, Olive and Pj duck into a semi-crowded Starbucks attached to the hotel while they wait for the advisors to check them all in, and Dan’s eyebrows scrunch together at the assault of red and white decorations hanging along the walls. Olive gags almost instantly, and Dan’s glad for the solidarity.

"The heat? It is a bit warm in here," Phil asks, fanning his sweatshirt for good measure.

"The decorations," she points out.

Phil looks up. “Oh,” he says, flatly. “Bit corporate, yeah.”

Dan takes a step closer to the front of the line, he can still feel Phil’s presence in his space and he wishes he felt anything other than thinly veiled fear.

He’s still trying to divorce his anxiety about potential rejection, about previous loss and the knowledge loss will continue to come, with his feelings regarding Phil. Any sort of rationale and sanity gets blown out the metaphorical window when he’s standing in front of a boy he doesn’t yet know how to reach. A conference with already heightened emotions just by the nature of it, falling on Valentine's day weekend, doesn’t really help.

Still, he’s found himself typing out thoughts and feelings he could possibly share on his phone on more than one occasion, and he knows Phil’s done the same. He thinks that’s a good medium. He turns his neck to look at Phil, who smiles when he catches his eye and Dan can’t help but meet it with something soft that plays at the corner of his mouth.

Pj claims a table outside for the four of them and the February sun makes Dan’s delegation sweatshirt feel like a hug.

“I don’t have anything until the Leadership Banquet tonight,” Olive says, scrolling through the program on her phone.

“Leadership day is a bit of hurry up and wait if you aren’t in four specific program areas,” Pj says, pulling off a piece of his lemon loaf and putting it in his mouth before flicking his wrist to look at his watch. “Like, I should be dressed by now.”

“You can change in the hotel bathroom,” Phil suggests.

“Or you could not do that and go see a movie with me,” Olive says, scrolling through her phone. “I’ve got at least five more hours to kill.”

“I have one meeting Ballroom A with the other chairs and our advisors in a few hours,” Dan says, “but I still haven’t gone over my proposals.”

“I’m trying to figure out how much it would cost to have school buses be mandatory throughout the state,” Olive says. “So far it’s coming out at like five-billion.”

“What the fuck are you serious?” Pj asks. “How is that even possible?”

“Labor, upkeep, gas, regulations,” Dan ticks off his fingers.

“Still,” Pj says.

“No wonder they cut them,” Phil adds.

“It’s always in the school districts that actually need them too,” Olive says. “‘Cause like, if your parents are your only transportation and they’re both working to support you month to month you’re screwed.”

“Shits fucked,” Dan deadpans. All four of their phones buzz.

“Devon says we can get our keys,” Phil reports, standing up and brushing crumbs off his lap.

“Finally,” Dan says, picking up and migrating to the lobby inside. Excitement echoes off the marble floors and he's given a room key by an advisor who's name he can't quite remember but who's phone number he takes down, and smiles when he pauses to look at it.

There's the YMCA Logo emblazoned on the side with the words "I Rise To," written in red lettering along the bottom. It's a nice touch, and the recognition of his own community makes something at the bottom of Dan's chest settle.

Pj's in and out of their room in about ten minutes, pulling on the neatly folded blazer at the top of his suitcase, downing a cup of instant coffee, and flashing a peace sign at Dan and Phil as he dashes out of the room somehow looking like he wasn't just rubbing the sleep out his eyes and is in fact a put together human being.

"You're gonna be late," Phil says, fixing the knot of his tie with his suitcase thrown open on the floor in front of the bed closest to the window.

Dan lays on his stomach, the hood of his sweatshirt covering his ears chin propped up on his pillow while he scrolls through his Twitter feed. It’s half leadership talking about their sightings and meetings, and half people who will arrive tomorrow excitedly counting down the hours.

He turns his torso halfway to look at Phil. “You heading down now?”

Phil pulls his phone out of his inside pocket and looks at the screen. “If you hurry the fuck up I’ll wait for you,” he says. He looks back at his phone. “Martyn says Nick Harper didn’t get on the plane this morning.”

“We have a statewide candidate that just didn’t show up is what you’re telling me?” Dan says, rolling off the bed and unzipping his suitcase against the far wall.

“I don’t know he missed the flight this morning and Martyn was running around but he’s on his way to the airport now,” Phil says, typing out on his phone.

“And he’ll probably still win the election,” Dan says, slightly bitter as he steps behind a half-closed bathroom door and pulls off his shirt.

“It’s good for the delegation,” Phil reminds him. “And Martyn’s spent a year of his life on this campaign for it to just fall apart because the candidate didn’t want to come to the conference.”

Dan doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He buttons up to the collar and flattens it down.

“He was nice to me once, for a little while before I moved we got along well.”

“Who, Martyn?” Phil asks, stupidly.

“No, Nick.”

Phil doesn’t respond, at least not so that Dan can hear.

“A lot of the kids were nice to me right before I moved, actually,” Dan adds, thoughtfully.

“Early onset nostalgia,” Phil suggests.

Dan stares in the bathroom mirror, blinking at his reflection a few times. Somehow the proof of his existence makes him feel older, out of place. He’s not even sixteen and yet the sheer change, the unexpected reality of this year versus the last one, makes him incredibly aware of his own growth and mortality.

“I guess.”

Dan walks out of the bathroom tucking in his shirt as he walks to dig through his suitcase for a belt and tie and pull on a black blazer to match his slacks.

“Ready to go?” Phil asks, bouncing a little in his shoulders, anxious to get going.

“Yeah,” Dan says, grabbing his laptop bag and shoving the conference program inside and throwing it over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Phil says, catching Dan’s hand when it reaches for the door and turning him into a kiss. Dan can feel his breath catch in his throat, and he lets his lips linger before breaking the kiss. He catches Phil’s eyes for a split second before quickly turning away from him and holding back a smile.

Dan’s practically skipping by the time he gets to the ballroom. He feels _giddy,_ he’s _excited._ Everything's so new and fresh and wonderful and sometimes Dan feels like he can’t swallow the unconvincing, overwhelming joy.

These might be his people, he thinks.

He’s practically skipping by the time he gets to the ballroom. He feels giddy, he’s excited, everything's so new and fresh and wonderful and sometimes Dan feels like he can’t swallow the unconvincing, overwhelming joy.

"Dan!" His head snaps to see his team leader, a good natured senior named Nadia, waving excitedly by the front of the room. Dan smiles almost instantly, a bounce in his toes as he runs over to give her a hug and ask about her trip to Tallahassee.

"It was good! Not too long a drive," she tells him, before getting to what was apparently on her mind. "Did I hear you and Phil are going out?"

Dan's brows stitch together. "How in the world -" "Snapchat isn't as subtle as you think my friend," she tells him.

“It’s - new, it’s new,” he says. “Kinda stumbled into taking the plunge.”

She smiles at him.

His fellow chairs and leaders greet him with excitement and exuberance and Dan is still smiling wildly as he sits around a conference table with responsibility and a little bit of power. He listens to the leadership above him explain the format for the weekend and he _loves_ it.

He keeps his laptop open and idly drags songs to the Spotify sidebar until suddenly he looks at it and feels approximately twelve years old.

About a quarter of the list is made up of _Belle and Sebastian_ and another is stuff he’s somehow picked back up from middle school. It’s all too sappy and it’s all, all about Phil.

Dan shuts his laptop a bit more succinctly than he would’ve if he wasn’t in a room with a load of people.

The thing about getting together in the whirl of emotions leading up to the MLC is once you get there it’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and you have no idea of the rules.

 _It’s been less than two weeks_ , Dan reminds himself. He hasn’t even touched his relationship status on Facebook, which, he recognises might be a bit juvenile, but seeing as his last relationship was in middle school it’s what he has to go on.

They had had a roundabout conversation basically agreeing not to spend money on each other, not to make it a big deal, which basically consisted of Dan casually stating all his opinions and Phil taking the hint. Vulnerability comes in waves. Baby steps.

He barely makes it to the banquet for applied leadership on time, and scans the room nervously before picking out Phil standing by a table packed with South Palm leadership.

“You’re late,” he tells Dan in a stern voice, a smile playing on the corner of his lips. Dan’s chest swells.

“It’s not my fault!” he proclaims.

Phil jerks his head. “There’s two seats over there come on.” He takes Dan’s hand lightly, electricity shooting through his body as Phil guides him by the fingertips until they’re sat packed with a table full of eager-eyed freshman.

The head of the program gives a speech, dinner is brought out, Dan stays as close to Phil as possible. He feels important, grown up. He hears his name read off a list of a few hundred other teenagers who Dan knows have a lot more grounds for sitting in this room than he does.

He reaches a hand out under the table and squeezes Phil’s leg.

Phil covers his hand with his own, and smiles.

* * *

It’s ten minutes after Pj’s gone downstairs for the delegation meeting the following morning, that Dan’s stumbling over the carpet and doing up his tie in a rush.

“You ready yet?” Phil asks, standing by the door and looking like he might spontaneously combust if he doesn’t get out of this room as soon as possible.

“Yeah, yeah I’m ready,” Dan says. “Don’t leave just yet.” He stuffs his schedule into his laptop bag and hits the bathroom light with more force than he realized before following Phil into the elevator, the clack of his shoes echoing against the marble. The corner of the hotel they seem to have convened in roars with excitement,150 familiar voices calling out in celebration of each other. Dan scans the crowd to see who he’s been missing. Martyn was at the bottom of the staircase, laughing and joking with the other officers, Nick Harper, having apparently made it to Tallahassee, standing quietly by his side. Leslie is off to the side proclaiming to a Junior that if she can’t go a week without smoking a cigarette he has a number she can call. Miles talks by the railings with a campaign manager Dan never actually learned the name of. He sees Alex front and center, surrounded by a group of people. He waves excitedly.

“How was the ride? When did you guys get in?” Phil asks, giving Alex a quick hug.

“Good I think, I fell asleep to the Little Mermaid halfway through and woke up when Marie started pulling out luggage,” Alex responds.

“Not bad then,” Phil responds.

“Better than last year.”

“It’s not my fault I got that cold from Martyn blame him!”

Alex opens his mouth to respond when a cheer comes from the front of the room and they all stop dead in their tracks to respond.

The delegation name echoes off the ceiling and crashes down to leave a warm glow in Dan’s chest all the way to session.

“I think your boy sent a bill our way if you want to take this one,” Nadia tells Dan, holding a red folder out to him. Dan very badly suppresses a grin.

“There’s a few others in there too you can give out to your delegates but I thought you might like the choice -” she pauses.

“Yeah, yeah. Thank you.” Dan’s smile breaks.

There are six bills enclosed ranging from unnecessary or obscure, to a necessary overhaul of major legislation. One of them simply increases the fee to obtain a drivers licence, another is a marriage incentives bill Dan makes sure he’ll give to one of his committee members who wouldn’t in a million years let it pass.

He gets to the fifth bill and grins again when he sees Phil’s name in neat type at the top, a sense of pride and recognition at seeing concrete proof of his success. _That’s my_ **boyfriend.**

_An act to amend Section 46000 - 65001 of the Penal Code relating to counselling services in Florida public High Schools._

_The people of the State of Florida do enact, as follows: all Florida public High Schools must have a full time psychologist on staff available to students during school hours, and enacted by the Fall Semester one year after the passage of this law._

_Funds will be allocated from the education budget planned for the upcoming fiscal year._

Dan reads the bill twice. He didn’t know what he expected of Phil’s penned legislation, but for some reason mental health reform for public school teens was not it.

 _Has Phil even been to public school?_ Dan thinks to himself. He’s almost positive the answer is no. He goes over the bill again, and again. He makes two copies in the business center and sits at a table in the hallway notating the bill on the page, and the author in his head.

They reconvene for dinner, two slices of pizza on paper plates as they stroll down K street and take notice of the candidates for Youth Governor give an impromptu debate in a courtyard as the sun goes down.

“Someone in Alex’s committee tried to pass a bill to recognise a state Shrek landmark,” Phil tells Dan, tossing his paper plate in the trash.

Dan dabs at his mouth before doing the same. “There’s no way SPY would’ve let us even bring that here.”

“That’s what I told Alex,” Phil says.

“I went over yours this afternoon, I have notes you can look over I have to write up the analysis for tomorrow.”

“Sweet.”

Dan humms, moving to lace their fingers together, keeping his eyes trained ahead until Phil finally lets go to let himself into the room.

“Woah, what bomb went off in here?” he asks, amused.

Pj sits at the desk in the corner, already in his pajamas with papers littering the surface in front of him and his laptop charger looking like it hasn’t been moved in at least three hours.

“Think I finally finished the edits on this proposal,” he says. “Which means I might actually get to sleep at a normal hour tonight.”

Pj shuts his laptop with a flourish before rubbing at his eyes.

“Ok, I’m turning in, Alex won’t get in until after curfew I’m almost sure of it, how much longer are you guys gonna need the light on?”

“A while,” Dan says.

“We can just work in the bathroom it’ll be fine,” Phil adds, digging in his suitcase for something to sleep in and changing over his underwear awkwardly in the corner.

Dan drapes his blazer back on it’s hanger and trades his button up for the t-shirt and sweats he left lying on the floor of the closet this morning.

“Grab a pillow for me to sit on then would you? I don’t wanna have to stand in session tomorrow,” Dan says, moving to rest his back against the half wall of the bathtub and opening his laptop. Phil returns shuts the door behind him, two pillows in tow, setting down next to Dan and letting their arms line up.

“The first thing I think is the allocated budget, there’s nowhere to pull from for the funding so we’d have to get it somewhere else,” Dan says, highlighting the space in the document. “It’s gonna cost over 200 million.”

“That’s only 3% of the education budget.”

“Yeah but since that’s being allocated to whatever other education measures get passed-”

“I know how the state budget works, Dan.”

“Ok, ok.” Dan pauses and scrolls down the rest of his notes. “You could also propose to make property taxes higher.”

“That’ll kill it on the floor.”

“Then we’ve gotta restrict someone else’s funding.”

Phil sighes. “Yeah.”

“I’m writing that the cons apart from the fiscal issues are the concern of parental rights in terms of their kids seeing doctors unsupervised,” Dan says.

Phil almost scoffs.

It’s quiet a few minutes, the clack clack of Dan’s long fingers hitting the keyboard as he writes out an introduction of the fiscal impact, glossing over the revenue generating portion as much as he can.

“I didn’t know you were writing such an intensive bill,” he says, indenting his next section.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this one since last spring,” Phil responds.

“That long? How come?” Dan asks causally.

“A friend from middle school killed himself last April.”

The room goes silent. The typing stops. Dan looks up from the screen.

“ _Phil,”_ he almost gasps _._ “You never told me that.”

“I don’t like talking about it really.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say really.”

Dan hugs him. Phil doesn’t say anything. They let each other try and wordlessly love the other whole.

“You’ve been letting me complain about my friend going to college when you can’t just call yours anymore,” Dan says into Phil’s shoulder.

“It’s ok, really,” Phil insists.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is. I imagine the two hurt very differently,” Phil responds.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says. He means it.

“Thanks.” Phil sighs. “Just sorta why I don’t give a damn about parental rights or notification or anything. If all you have is your school counselor they should be actually helpful.”

Dan nods along.

“Yeah.”

“It’s like, I know that this is _model_ legislature and passing this won’t actually change anything but-”

“No, I get it,” Dan interjects. “It’s a model of how the world should be.”

Phil kisses him. Dan’s entire heart jumps into his throat.

“Thanks,” Phil says, “for listening.”

“Yeah, yeah of course.” Dan shuts his laptop. “Can I-”

“Please.”

They’re kissing again, and everything is on fire.

There’s too much tongue and a little bit of teeth, trembling hands over clothes and under hair. It’s new, and fresh, and exciting. The cool tile against his back reminds Dan that he is alive and this is real, and how he thinks he might not want to let this go.

* * *

 

Either it’s easier than Dan thought to run a committee, or he’s not doing it right. They sit in a circle of plush chairs in the Hilton lobby at 10 am on Valentine’s Day, and Dan reads over and gives notes on their work as casually as he can manage with an open a bag of heart shaped gummies he bought after ducking into a CVS with Phil the day before.

Dan hadn’t seen Phil since the delegation meeting this morning. He’s not sure what the plan is today, they’ve danced around the topic for two weeks, trying to get just a hold of how new it all was. Where was the line? What was safe?

“I found where I can pull the funding,” Phil says, after speeding through the hallway, oxfords clacking against the floor as he rushes into the building and around the corner before asking to steal Dan for a second.

“Yeah? Where? I can add it in the fiscal impact section,” Dan responds excitedly.

“That’s the problem, I’d have to kill the other bill vying for this much of the existing education budget. It’s about implementing compost education and structure in schools.”

“That sounds cool but -” Dan starts.

“Alex sponsored it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a beat.

“It’s a good bill,” Phil adds. “The vote’s after the lunch break.”

“Are you gonna talk to the Whip?” Dan asks.

“I already did, I needed four votes to flip it and I think I’m just one away. When do you have to submit?” Phil prods.

Dan blinks, surprised almost. “Not until five, the Governor is looking at the proposals at six.”

Phil sighs, flicking his bangs out of his eyes. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna try rally the votes then.”

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you need to tell Alex.”

“Yeah.” Phil sighs again. “Ok, I’m gonna call him. See if I can buy him lunch or something in exchange for destroying the project he’s been working on for the last month.” He rubs his eyes. “Speaking of - what time are you out tonight do you have time for dinner?”

Dan’s heart skips. “I’m done at 6:45?”

“Cool,” Phil says, digging in his messenger bag. “I’ll call you after I talk to Alex.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan agrees. “We’re moving to the Capitol in an hour or so or I’d come with you.”

Phil pulls out an unsealed white envelope and hands it to Dan. “Ok, I gotta run I’m gonna be late.” He reaches to give Dan’s dropped hand a squeeze before turning back the way he came, his shoes making the same noise they did on the way in.

Dan rejoins his group, sinking in the chair and bringing his laptop back on his knees before taking a look at the header, he hasn’t read the bill yet.

Except, it’s not the bill.

 _Dear Dan,_ Shit.

He sends his committee to lunch.

_Dear Dan,_

_Happy Valentines Day. I finished the book I got at Goodwill the other week, and I can't stop thinking about String Theory._

_Strings are theoretical particles which are so fundamental (nothing more than a vibrating band of energy) that we can never really see them because they are so insignificant that when compared to the energy of a quark (which is the most fundamental particle confirmed to date) it is entirely outshone. Chances are we will never be able to see them and in fact they probably can never exist on their own as their very existence is dictated by particles so much larger than them, forces far beyond the control of these little particles keep them locked in and prevent them from breaking out of their quantum prisons._

_But despite all of this strings have a power beyond any quark or proton, any atom any star any hyper-nova. These strings vibrate at a frequency which dictates the very existence of the universe. They are why the universe exists and why it will die, they are the reason for everything and the only people in the world who can even begin to try and comprehend these magnificent little particles are contained in a highly specialized field. But just because so few people try and even fewer succeed at understanding these particles doesn't mean they are less important, just because their fate is so far out of their control that nothing we could do would allow us to study them on their own doesn't mean they are insignificant, it only means that we haven't evolved enough to figure out they exist._

_In many ways you are like a string. Your life right now is out of your control because so much of it is dictated to you by people who are older than you, but just because you are a minor and don't yet have enough rights to choose your own destiny, just because so many of the people around you fail utterly to grasp your brilliance doesn't mean that no one does. Just because you may go through times when it may seem that no one understands you, trust me, I won't stop until I do._

_I guess somewhere I lost where I was going with this because it's hard to express why you mean so much to me because you seem to have this power which I can't describe. No matter how much I talk to you everything you say seems to fill me with confidence and happiness, you are always sitting there with exactly the right thing to say and know just what to tell me when I'm feeling down or how to make me happy when times are tough._

_Now I've rambled on for far too long and probably made your head hurt with all this talk about strings and and taken up too much of your time so I'm going to end it right here, but before I go remember you're incredible and it may be hard for some people to see it but I will always know that and I will always want you to be around so don't go running off without me._

_Love,_

_Phil_

Dan reads the letter over and over again. He smiles. He's in awe. Some part of him really was convinced that none of this, his feelings or Phil's or this thing they were building together, were at all real.

Here was printed proof, ink on page that this moment did in fact happen. This incarnation of himself was here.

Dan sits in the cush gray chair and does two things, changes his relationship status on Facebook, and sends Phil a link to his spotify playlist with a small message, _Thank you, Love you, Happy Valentines Day._

It's the best he can do with the skills he's been given. He thinks it's still enough.

Dan replays Phil's words over and over while he sits in session, he debates on autopilot and comes out of the Capitol in a daze. He thinks he may be in love. He thinks this may be everything. He thinks if this goes away he might not get over it.

Dan stops in the hotel Starbucks and is met with a done-up Alex in the corner, waving him over.

"Phil's in the bathroom," he tells Dan. "His bill passed."

Dan's not quite sure how to respond. "I'm sorry," he says.

Alex shakes his head. "I killed my bill, I was the fourth vote.”

“Wow.”

“Honestly it's ok. His was more important."

"Climate change is just as important," Dan points out.

"True," Alex responds, "but this meant more to Phil than it would to me."

Dan squeezes Alex's arm. "That's really admirable of you, really."

"Thanks."

Phil comes out of the bathroom, absently fixing his hair as he walks. Dan bites back a smile. Alex raises his eyebrows.

"Congratulations," Dan says. "Heard your bill passed."

"It just happened ten minutes ago," Phil tells him, grabbing the second coffee on the table. "Do you have your laptop? We can make those edits now."

"Yeah, yeah." Dan diggs in his bag for his laptop, the analysis document up and ready to go.

_Funding is available for AB 40 within the current budget for the upcoming fiscal year as approved by the Senate, pending approval by the Governor._

Alex claps Phil on the back. “I’m gonna get going I’m supposed to meet up with people from Appellate Court.” The chair scrapes as he gets up and grabs his bag.

“Nice job guys,” he tells them before walking out the glass doors..

“Right, dinner?” Dan proposes.

They end up in a mediterranean restaurant down the street, keeping their heads above water in a too long line, sheepishly holding the other's hand until they finally get a number and a table and reluctantly let go.

Dan is incredibly aware of the context, of the meaning, that this is a Date. He's grateful everything stays the same.

They talk and laugh about video games and gossip about their friends, make fun of the Republican party and infodump about their latest interest. Friendship, it seems, may be the best base for a relationship.

They hold hands the whole way back to the hotel, stopping to kiss just once or twice, the breeze blowing past their blazers reminding them who and where they are.

* * *

 

The last morning is a rush even more intense than the rest of the weekend.

Everyone's throwing things into bags to toss in a pile to be stowed on the buses when they arrive, pulling out two or three outfits to change into for the events later.

The Youth Governor signs more than half of the bills Dan's committee sent over, including Phil's. He'll be receiving a certificate in the mail for it, Phil's told. Dan beams with pride.

They're stopped for polling after they vote on computers in the hallways of the Hilton ballroom set up, stopped for program photographs, for the promotion of candidates they were never going to vote for considering pretty much the entire delegation had sworn to vote for Miles’s candidate, until finally they're in their finery and standing outside waiting to enter the hall for the Governor's Banquet.

Dan looks around and sees the same hundred and fifty people he was terrified of six months ago, and realizes considers them something like family.

Pj has his phone out taking selfies with everyone and anyone, Phil pulls his out too, and they're all laughing.

"How did NIC wrap up?" Phil asks Pj.

"Really well, my proposal passed and everything. I think I'm gonna submit it for CONA," Pj says.

"Conference on National Affairs," Phil whispers to Dan. "They take a handful of kids from each state, Pj's on track to be accepted this year."

"Fuck man, good job," Dan says.

Phil raises his phone and snaps a picture, Dan makes a face, it comes out great. The awkwardness comes off as the warmth behind it, and Dan thinks it might be a perfect representation of his time here.

They find seats at a table back to back with Martyn’s group of friends, the anticipation reverberating off the concrete floors.

There’s dinner and an introduction by a congressman from a district Dan has never heard of. An advisor from a delegation that is not their own wins Advisor of the Year and the SPY kids politely clap while throwing short glances over to Leslie.

“Next year, we’ll make it happen,” Phil says. Dan nods in agreement.

The Chief of Staff takes the podium to call the results for Secretary of State, and the sea of South Palm tables goes quiet, before Nick fucking Harper is announced as the incoming Secretary of State, and they all go wild.

Phil is hugging a near tearful Martyn. Dan is lifted out of his seat by his own excitement and finds himself screaming hoarse. Nick himself looks shocked, humbled, as his girlfriend sends him up to the podium to give his acceptance speech.

Dan stays as close to Phil as possible, but he’s not angry or upset. Somehow it doesn’t seem like a representation of his childhood outcast on the stage, it’s the part of himself that was found waiting, desperate for a group of people to open their arms and give him this safe place to land.

The crowd rumbles. The top two candidates names and faces appear on the screen behind the stage, both with white zeros bellow. Seniors from every delegation are crowded around their leaders begging for the slips of paper with their delegations vote count for Youth Governor. Leslie is standing on a chair yelling over the crowd until he finally gets down and hands Martyn and Cornelia the slip of paper.

And then it begins.

Two representatives from almost almost one hundred delegations stand in a mile long line for the microphone. They give their names, their delegations, some give shout-outs, and then they read. It would be grating if it wasn’t so exciting.

Some delegations have four people. Some have fifty. Dan watches how while the polish may be different on the ones at the mic from a delegation with over a hundred people, he notices that the love is the same across the board.

It’s an agonizingly long list of people Dan has never seen before, people Dan had one session with in November, people Dan considers friends, until Martyn and Cornelia step up to the microphone all smiles and style.

“The delegation from the South Palm Family YMCA” (the entire crowd cheers back “ _South Paaalllm,_ ”) “The delegation casts one hundred and twenty four votes for Georgia Lee,” there’s another eruption before Martyn can even get out the remaining twenty eight votes. The elections been secured.

The camera pans to Georgia walking to the stage, she’s crying. Dan turns his head and sees Miles out of the corner of his eye, and he’s crying too.

At this point crying is part of the ritual.

There are more speeches, more tears, more moments where Dan can’t help but stand as close to Phil as possible or circle the room bidding farewell to statewide friends.

Dan hears the very first notes to the song in the background, and he can’t help but think of bookends.

“I listened to this on repeat on the way to T&E one,” he tells Phil.

“Who did you sit with?” Phil asks.

Dan almost giggles at the reality of just how much has changed.

“Myself.”

 

* * *

 

They’re shuffled to an empty conference room almost the moment the outgoing Governor finished his speech, and for the first time the entire weekend it’s dead quiet.

Dan’s done friendship circles before, at the end of theater productions or accidentally at a party after everyone had something to drink. He thinks he knows what he’s in for. He does not.

The room is cleared out, everyone stacks up against the walls on the standard grey carpet and waits with bated breath until Leslie speaks from the front of the room.

“If you are a four year senior, please raise your hand.”

Thirty or so hands are in the air. Dan can feel Phil inch closer and slink an arm around his waist when Martyn’s own shoots high into the air almost immediately, but it’s Miles who speaks first.

He stands in the center of the room, turning slowly, getting a good look at everyone in the room.

“Miles Baldwin, South Palm YMCA.”

There’s an encouraging callback. Miles gives a soft smile. “I know I didn’t have to do that but I just wanted to hear you all say it once more while all of us are here together.”

“I almost didn’t come back to Y and G this year,” he says. “Losing Youth Gov last year, regardless of the support I got from the people in this room, it was just like working harder than I’ve ever worked for anything and still having my peers tell me to go away.”

Dan’s heart sinks, he knows the feeling all too well.

“This year was hard,” Miles continues. “I’ve never really known where I fit in outside of Y and G, so to not know where I fit in here was,” he sighs, “absolutely devastating.” There’s a pause before he adds, “I love being the Community Liaison. I love bringing people into the program and doing everything I can to keep them happy here, to make them feel loved and can only hope that they love this program as much as I do.”

Miles clears his throat. “I almost didn’t even make it to T&E one, though. I almost didn’t get to be this. I only got there because I told my mom to take me to the hospital after I downed a bottle of Advil the week before.”

It’s the first collective sob, and it’s unlike anything Dan’s ever heard before. He finds himself holding on to Phil tighter than he ever has. The room is _loud_ and Dan thinks if he could measure the energy in this room it would spill out all over whatever beaker he tried to put it in.

“I didn’t get to be Youth Governor,” Miles continues. “I didn’t get the perfect Y and G plan that I mapped out when I was fourteen, but then I was asked to chair a political party and even if it was my second choice or a contingency prize, I realized that I got to lift up other people.”

There are spirit fingers scattered all over the room. Dan thinks his own may fall off.

“Y and G has taught me how to understand other people and really appreciate them, for whether it's our differences or our similarities. I feel like the best thing I've learned this program is how to more or less appreciate the relationships you make in life, and how to really understand that people are just what they expose on the exterior. I feel like one thing that people generally don't understand about others is what they tend not to show.”

Miles shakes out his hair before lifting his sweatshirt cuff to rub at his eyes.

“And that’s the best part, you know?” he continues. “You really understand more about yourself and more about life through actually investigating other people and understanding that they have all the same issues, the same hopes and dreams you do.”

He turns around again. “I love you guys.”

Miles is fully crying now, and Dan lets out a sob as well. He didn’t know. He never even thought about what life was like for any of the people he thought knew were so much better than he was.

Everyone’s story is something like this, and every single one is met with cries and spirit fingers and at least four people getting up to hug the speaking senior by the end of it. Dan and Phil stay circled awkwardly around each other, heads ducked in and under arms, a second shield in an already safe place.

Trouble at home, trouble in school, trouble with bullies or with drug abuse or any kind of abuse you can name. Dan starts to wonder if there’s a reason they’re all here together.

Then Martyn speaks, and Phil holds on to Dan for dear life.

“I was really jaded with Y and G this year,” he says, and Dan is shocked.

He was unaware it was possible to be jaded with this program. He was unaware that you could be jaded with success.

Phil doesn’t seem surprised at all. Dan wonders how you can know all the bad things about something, all the reasons to put it behind you, and still choose to love it with such fervor.

Martyn does not cry, but Phil does. He’s up on his feet and in the center of the circle hugging his brother the moment he finishes talking. Dan wants to understand it.

There's more crying and hugging, a few advisors speak, and then they’re up again.

It’s dark and cold when Dan drops exhausted into a window seat in the middle of the charter bus and sticks the arm up so Phil can sit down right next to him and lay his head on Dan’s shoulder with a sigh.

The bus hisses and pulls out of the city. Dan suddenly feels terrified.

What is life going to be like without this one big thing to look forward too.

It’s silent for at least an hour. Phil asleep on Dan and Dan finally dozing off, headphones in and slouched across Phil as well, using the other as a blanket against the cold as much as for the emotional warmth.

“I don’t want to go back,” he whispers to Phil.

Phil tilts his head up to look at Dan, and kisses him.

Dan can feel every cell in his body, every part of him tied to the ground, to the moment around him. It’s soft and lazy, timid tongues and half open mouths. There’s an overwhelming feeling like this is where he’s meant to be.

They separate just to catch their breath, the highway lights reflecting against green signs. Phil shuffles back down so that their bodies are mostly covering each other again.

“Me neither,” Phil says finally.

Dan hums and lets the music move him through suspension of time, lets it all rock him back to sleep.


End file.
